Forty Under 40: Ryan Fitzpatrick, Pursuit Oil & Gas

Ryan D. Fitzpatrick, vice president of land at Pursuit Oil & Gas LLC, is today’s featured Forty Under 40 honoree.

Formerly with Stonegate Production Co. LLC, Fitzpatrick is one of the handful of people who helped build a stronghold for Pursuit Oil & Gas within the Eagle Ford Shale’s dry-gas window in Webb and La Salle counties, Texas.

“Many peers in the industry probably had thought we lost our minds—while everyone else was looking to hit it big in building oil-weighted businesses, we were focused on natural gas,” he said.

“It was quite early on,” he continued, “but we understood the foundation that gas had as a fuel necessary to power the world—and as more and more people were looking to create cleaner businesses, gas would fill that gap. With LNG now a reality, it would open this cleaner burning fuel to the world.”

With this targeted approach and a strong focus on subsurface, Pursuit hit the ground running in late 2016.

“Over the course of a year I was responsible for the leasing efforts of 25k acres, which became the core of our business,” Fitzpatrick said. “Today we are producing right at 90 million cubic feet of gas, and we’ll drill eight more wells in 2021.”

Fitzpatrick has broad experience in both development and exploration activities across the Lower 48 and also served as team lead for Oxy USA Inc.’s Midcontinent business unit earlier in his career.