Brandon Laxton ~ Founder and President of Aresco LP

Monday, November 25th, 2013 and is filed under New Mexico Oil and Gas Investing, Texas Oil and Gas Investing

Meet Brandon Laxton

Brandon Laxton is the founder and president of Aresco LP, a privately held energy investment and asset management company. Under his leadership, the company pursues exploration, development, and production of oilfield resources throughout the state of Texas. With almost twenty years of business experience, Brandon draws on his expertise in project/product management, marketing, negotiations, divestitures, institutional and private equity financing, risk assessment, venture operations, business development strategies, corporate communications, and legal.

Since entering the oil and gas industry in 2003, Brandon has served as Vice President of Operations for a South Texas natural gas producer as well as Vice President of Brokerage Services for a Texas-based firm specializing in energy and oil field joint ventures. In these positions, Brandon played a key role in the capital acquisition and relationship management for numerous exploration projects with combined budgets exceeding $60 million. In addition to his business and financial acumen, he has significant hands-on industry experience in oilfield operations, workovers, re-entries, and drilling.

In recent years, Brandon has expanded his focus to include mineral leasing and royalty/production acquisitions, primarily in the Eagle Ford Shale trend, where he has personally originated and completed approximately $50 million in mineral lease transactions.

In 2009, Brandon began exploring leasehold opportunities in proven-producing fields in south, west, and east Texas. While reworking older wells in south Texas, he became interested in the up-and-coming Eagle Ford Shale. A consummate student of the industry, Brandon had followed the impressive success of similar shale plays, in particular North Dakota’s Bakken Shale and North Texas’ Barnett Shale. Reasoning that the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies used in other shale plays would soon be applied in south Texas, Brandon began establishing leasehold positions in key Eagle Ford counties. He took his first lease in early 2010, long before many majors were active in the area. Over the course of just a few months, he was competing with––and besting––some of the biggest companies in the business including Chesapeake, Petrohawk, Cabot Oil & Gas and Sanchez Oil & Gas.

Due to his extensive knowledge of the area, Hess Corp and ZaZa Energy retained Brandon to pursue and secure leases on their behalf, using their funding, from start to finish. He led the negotiations between all interested parties including mineral owners, attorneys, and Operators to determine the terms of mineral lease and/or surface agreements. In all, Brandon originated and secured over 20 leases in prime Eagle Ford acreage.

Brandon stayed active in the Eagle Ford leasing boom until mid 2011 before turning his attention full time to building Aresco and Aresco Operating (registered with the Texas Railroad Commission). Today, Aresco builds on Brandon’s successes with active drilling and production projects across Texas. Most notably, the company is a non-operating working interest partner actively drilling approximately 7,000 gross acres in Zavala County, Texas.

Like many, Brandon’s success in business was the result of personal drive and strong work ethic. In 1994, out of necessity, Brandon left college after being recruited by the Fortune 500 Company Westinghouse Electric to join their Texas-based security division as a licensed consultant. Early successes and rapid advancement within the organization resulted in the recommendation for management by age of 21. After assisting the company through two mergers, Brandon chose to return to college to pursue a business management degree to honor a commitment to his family, which was to join his siblings as the first generation to earn college degrees. Through discipline and determination, Brandon Laxton earned an Associates Degree from the University of Phoenix, graduating with a 4.0 grade point average in 2003 while working full time.

For more info, please visit Brandon’s LinkedIn page.