Forty Under 40: Zach Fenton, UpCurve Energy

Zachary S. Fenton, founder and COO of Houston-based UpCurve Energy LLC, is today’s featured Forty Under 40 honoree.

Starting with “a napkin in a coffee shop,” Fenton founded UpCurve Energy with former colleagues from ConocoPhillips Co. during the 2015 downturn.

No stranger to challenging market environments, Fenton led the Permian Basin-focused operator to produce almost 15,000 boe/d prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated oil market distress. Reflecting on his experience, he said, “To some extent, you don’t know much about yourself as a businessperson and a leader until you’ve been through some downtimes and overcome obstacles, and this is certainly a big one.”

Fenton plans to continue “to position UpCurve I to come out of this downturn in a stronger position than ever,” with an eye toward anchoring a second iteration of the company, which is backed by Post Oak Energy Capital, in the current market.

Prior to co-founding UpCurve, Fenton worked as a senior reservoir engineer in ConocoPhillips’ Eagle Ford development organization. Before that, he worked as an associate at the private-equity firm Lindsay Goldberg and as an analyst in Morgan Stanley’s investment banking division.