Cofounder, Titanium Exploration Partners
Even with oil prices plummeting, fracking remains a boom industry especially in South Texas’ energy rich Eagle Ford Shale, where wily operators can extract oil for as little as $40 per barrel. That opportunity has attracted a fresh generation of energy entrepreneurs like Brennan Potts, who teamed up with two older oil gas veterans to form Titanium Exploration Partners in 2014. The firm has raised $300 million in private equity funding (fracking is capital intensive) and amassed interests in over 25,000 acres and 100 wells. Potts splits his time between evaluating new investments and managing the drilling on the properties that Titanium already owns. “We started this company in my home in Dallas and actually invested our first $20 million off my kitchen table.” Before Titanium, Potts worked in business development at Valor Petroleum and at Upland Oil Gas, where he worked on a deal to acquire drilling rights on 39 million acres in Peru. “Any success that I’ve enjoyed to date has been because people have believed in my ability early in my career.”
Photo: Walter Smith for Forbes
