Veteran dealmaker Steve W. Herod was recently named head of Grizzly Energy LLC, marking reemergence following his resignation last year from Halcón Resources, a company he had co-founded alongside legendary wildcatter Floyd Wilson.

Grizzly, formerly Vanguard Natural Resources, appointed Herod as CEO, effective Feb. 3, according to a company news release. Herod succeeds Jonathan C. Curth, who had been serving as interim president and CEO since Grizzly’s former CEO, R. Scott Sloan, stepped down in September. Sloan had agreed to provide limited transitional advisory services to the company through March 31.

“Steve brings a diverse skill set of oil and gas leadership and transactional experience to the company,” said Grizzly board chairman Patrick J. Bartels Jr. in a statement welcoming Herod to the company’s management team.

Herod has nearly four decades of experience in the oil and gas industry. Previously, he served as executive vice president of corporate development at Halcón Resources since its formation in 2012. Herod along with Wilson resigned from the company in 2019 following activist investor pressure from Halcón shareholder Fir Tree Partners.

Wilson and Herod had worked together since 1997 when Wilson’s 3TEC Energy Corp. acquired Shore Oil Co., where Herod served as president. The pair would later go on to form PetroHawk Energy Corp., which was sold to BHP Billiton in 2011.

Herod’s career also includes working at Conquest Exploration Co. and Superior Oil Co., where he began his career as a financial analyst in 1981.

At Grizzly, Herod takes the reins of a company that has gone through two financial restructurings since the 2014 oil crash.

Formerly known as Vanguard Natural Resources since its formation as an upstream MLP in 2006, the company emerged from its most recent bankruptcy in July 2019 with the new moniker, Grizzly Energy, as well as a new strategy.

Following its transformation, the company plans to focus on operating long-lived producing properties primarily in the Rockies, Permian Basin and Midcontinent regions. This is in stark contrast to its predecessor, which, despite starting out solely in the Appalachian Basin, ended up growing its portfolio to include positions in nearly every major basin in the Lower 48.

“By coring up around established basins, we deeply understand our basins and operating environments,” Grizzly Energy said of the strategy on its website. “This knowledge allows us to continuously identify low-risk capital investments and efficiencies in operating costs.”

Grizzly expected its 2019 capex to range between $43 million and $50 million and include ongoing drilling and uplift projects in the Arkoma’s Woodford play, the Red Lake area in the Permian Basin and the Pinedale Field of the Green River Basin.

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