Will Hickey and James Walter
Editor's note: This profile is part of Hart Energy's 50th anniversary Hall of Fame series honoring industry pioneers of the past 50 years and the Agents of Change (ACEs) who are leading the energy sector into the future.
Blame Dad Joiner. Columbus Marion Joiner was 70 when his Daisy Bradford #3 became the discovery well for the giant East Texas field in 1930. That seems to have established the archetype of oil pioneer as a grizzled veteran who can smell oil.
At about half Joiner’s age, Hickey and Walter are turning the idea of industry leaders, and of independent producing companies on its head. The childhood friends from the affluent University Park area of Dallas are committed to the oil and gas industry’s relevance in the global economy for the long term, and are building Permian Resources on youth and data.
In August, Permian Resources acquired Earthstone Energy for $4.5 billion in an all-stock transaction that boosted Permian’s holding to more than 400,000 Permian net acres, and pro forma production of approximately 300,000 boe/d.
Permian Resources was formed in September 2022 with the merger of Centennial Resource Development and Colgate Energy. The combination claimed primacy at the time as “the largest pure-play exploration and production company in the Delaware Basin [with] high-quality drilling locations on about 180,000 net acres.”
At the time of the merger, Permian Resources indicated it would reduce its rig count by one, to seven, but still spud 145 and complete approximately 150 gross wells in 2023 to be split relatively evenly between New Mexico and Texas.
The partners both attended the University of Texas at Austin. Hickey earned a bachelor of science in petroleum engineering while Walter earned a degree in finance. Hickey also earned a master’s of business administration from Southern Methodist University.
Hickey joined Pioneer Natural Resources after graduation, where he rose to chief of staff for the COO. He then joined the Dallas office of private-equity firm EnCap Investments, where he evaluated and monitored investments across oil and gas with a focus on the Permian Basin. Meanwhile, Walter was doing the same thing at another PE firm, Denham Capital Management in Houston. Before that Walter worked at Boston Consulting Group, primarily focused on evaluating upstream operations for E&P firms.
During a friendly visit, the two hatched an idea to form their own producing company. The casual discussion quickly turned to a serious plan that came to fruition as Colgate Energy, named for the street on which they lived as children. Their initial focus was on the Delaware Basin. They had a modest initial backing of $75 million so they took an opportunistic approach to be efficient and keep costs low. That development mantra prevails today.
Their unusual co-CEO structure works because of their long friendship, of course, but also because Hickey takes care of the technical and engineering aspects of running the company while Walter is responsible for business development and finance.
Another prescient move was to adopt what has become known as Big Data. In an industry that tends to be individualistic—another echo of the early wildcatters?—Permian Resources evaluates every available data point from surrounding wells. All that information is aggregated to craft best practices for the company’s own wells.
—Gregory Morris, Contributing Editor