Paul Rady and privately owned Antero Resources Corp., Denver, are back in the game, with a $1-billion line-of-equity funding led by private-equity firm Warburg Pincus and including Yorktown Energy Partners VII LP, Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking Group and Antero management.

The news comes a week after former El Paso Corp. and Apache Corp. executive Lisa Stewart announced the formation of Sheridan Production Partners LP, and its $1.3-billion fund to invest in mature U.S. assets, including the Gulf of Mexico shelf. Stewart and team also have private-equity capital from Warburg Pincus.

Antero chairman and chief executive Rady and president and chief financial officer Glen C. Warren Jr. formed Antero, which was focused on the Barnett shale, and became the second-largest producer and second-most-active operator in the area. It was sold in April 2005 to XTO Energy Inc. for more than $1 billion in cash and stock.

The current Antero group has been focused on developing properties in the Arkoma Basin of Oklahoma and the Piceance Basin of Colorado.

Antero operates 11 rigs and has more than 120,000 net leasehold acres with more than 2,800 proved, probable and possible gross drilling locations. Its gross operated production in the Woodford shale play of the Arkoma Basin is 34 million cu. ft. of gas per day; in the Piceance Basin, 20 million.

Antero also owns more than 40 miles of gathering pipeline and gas-processing capacity of 100 million cu. ft. per day in the Arkoma Basin and approximately 20 miles of pipeline in the Piceance Basin.

Prior to founding Antero, Rady was chairman, president and CEO of Pennaco Energy Inc., which was sold to Marathon Oil. Warren was executive vice president and CFO of Pennaco. Rady and Warren led Pennaco from its start as a small acreage-holder in the Powder River Basin play in Wyoming into a public company with net production of more than 50 million cu. ft. per day. Prior to Pennaco, Rady was president and CEO of Barrett Resources Corp., which was sold to The Williams Cos., Tulsa, Okla. (NYSE: WMB).

Rady says, "We are very pleased to continue our partnership with Warburg Pincus, Yorktown Energy Partners and Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking in one of the largest private-equity commitments ever made in the exploration and production sector. The Antero management team has worked together for many years and has had outstanding success at finding and developing natural gas reserves in the Midcontinent and Rocky Mountain regions."

Warburg Pincus managing director Peter R. Kagan says, "We are tremendously pleased with the strong results our partnership has produced to date, and we are excited to continue to work with management as they become a leading industry player in non-conventional resources."

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