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The entrepreneur petroleum geologist has witnessed dramatic change over the last few years. An explosion of funding from private equity firms led to the creation of a multitude of new oil and gas companies, but that funding source has radically decreased. Commodity prices of both oil and gas have seen wild swings in value, including the unprecedented negative values briefly experienced by oil. Capital that once flowed freely into new oil and gas investments is now fighting through a global mindset that views hydrocarbon production as a bad thing. Or not. And of course, we have had a worldwide economic crisis brought on by the battle with Covid-19.
AAPG’s DPA (Division of Professional Affairs) has brought together 8 petroleum geologists who have found a way to thrive despite all the hardships of the current financial climate. This special conference provides the attendees a unique opportunity to hear the back stories and struggles faced by companies led by geologists. You will learn how they have succeeded in building a business, finding the capital and sometimes, reinventing the way they thrive in the world of oil and gas. If you have ever thought about taking your skills as a geologist and expanding into the world of entrepreneurship, then this conference is for you.
Reinventing Olifant Energy – Building A PDP Petroleum Company During A Pandemic Donald Burdick
Olifant Energy came to life as a typical private equity backed oil company in 2017. After the sale of that company in 2019, Olifant reinvented itself into a PDP company without a traditional private equity sponsor. Donald will talk about the struggles and triumphs encountered by his team as they journeyed from a minimum wage, no asset dream to a profitable hydrocarbon production company all during 2020.
Geologists Love Minerals, From Diamonds To Royalties! Kristie Luchtel Ferguson
Oil and Gas Minerals and Royalties are assets that are bought and sold every day. The mineral space has seen a tremendous amount of competition and growth over the last decade due to the development of the unconventional plays.I was fortunate to be a founding partner at Springbok Energy I and II, which launched in 2015 and sold together in 2020 for a successful multiple to Kimbell Royalty Partners.We were anchored by NGP and then raised additional capital to total over $135MM.Our business model focused on the grass roots purchasing of minerals and royalties with a technical team working with an internal sales team.
Believe it or not, there is much more to understand beyond the porosity and net pay of a play or basin. Factors such as the rate of capital deployment, number of rigs, operator history, number of permitted wells, development plans, and parent/child relationships, are just a few of the controls that must be monitored, compared, understood, and adjusted frequently. The risks and rewards of playing the mineral game are much different than being an operator. The beauty of being a mineral owner is that you do not have to make the day-to-day operational decisions about a well. Conversely, the downside about being a mineral owner is that you do not have control on the timing of the production or the development schedule. However, as with any company, the bottom line is the exit strategy. How much do you want to grow as a company, where do you want to end up, IPO? Merger? Sale? How to decide? How to do make this journey to the end changes at every swing in the oil and gas price. This is a tale of our mineral journey and some of our learnings along the way, rock hammer in hand.
Continued Evolution – As A Company And As An Individual Todd Witmer
Summary: U.S. Energy has evolved through multiple transitions of its strategy, operations, and management team over its 40+ year history. Todd Witmer will discuss how U.S. Energy navigated a variety of challenges since the transition to its 2nd generation of leadership. The transformation included significant change to its team, culture and areas of operation resulting in the company being in its strongest financial position in its history, with a promising outlook for the next 40 years.
Transitioning Into A Capital Management Role From A G&G Background In The E&P Industry William H. Goodwin
Petroleum Geologists are technically trained to predict and answer some of the toughest questions in the E&P business. Unfortunately for many Geologists, the laser focus on highly specific skills commonly isolates them far away from business decisions made around deploying and managing capital.This talk focuses on the path for G&G individuals to look at our industry through a commercial lens of assessing both risk and potential as an investor, raising capital and building a business.
DCARB: Benefiting From Obligation – An Organic Idea Cultivated By Necessity Whitney Landress
DCARB Project is a unique company focused on plugging abandoned oil and gas wells, promoting land and agricultural best practices, and rewarding emissions reduction by leveraging blockchain technology to create transparency as well as our own cryptocurrency designed to create assets with intrinsic value. As young and tech-savvy scientists who were laid off during the pandemic, the DCARB group came together organically to solve some of the petroleum industry’s biggest issues – abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells. The DCARB group will outline how their group came together and their plan to unlock the potential of blockchain technology to change the way the oil and gas industry benefits from their obligations.
How to Build A Company With Lots Of Ideas But A Small Amount of Cash J. Michael Party
When you decide, or a company decides for you, that you need to look at being an independent or starting your own company, it can be scary. But if you have laid a good foundation, it should not be a scary point in your life, it should be an exciting point as you venture down the new career path.
This talk will discuss how you build a company the old-fashioned way, generate a drillable prospect, get funding for land and seismic, and get the prospect drilled and tested. In my opinion this is the best avenue to build a company. You can structure the deals in a way that, if successful, you get more of the reward. With avenues such as private equity, it is rarely the case where everything works out so well that you see much of the reward.
The hardest part is getting money to fund the exploration and drilling of your prospect. This talk will discuss ways to fund seismic and land acquisitions to get the prospect ready to sell.
Tall City Exploration III - Surviving Another ‘Once-in-a Lifetime’ Bust Michael Oestmann
Tall City Exploration III is the product of 15 years of private equity booms and busts.Mike will discuss reactions to the market, some mistakes made and a couple of successes along this private equity journey.
Financing The Independent Geologist Lee Billingsley
External financing frequently separates the dreamer with a good idea from the successful oil and gas producer who gets ideas evaluated on a regular basis. So how does an independent geologist obtain funds for a prospect? After a viable prospect idea has been formulated, this talk will guide you through a process for finding investors, setting potential deal terms, and presenting your prospect. Finally, you may get a glimpse of how a successful prospect might affect you economically