Permian Panel: M&A Landscape

Chris Atherton is the Chief Executive Officer and President of EnergyNet, Inc. EnergyNet is a technology-enabled upstream oil and gas asset acquisition and divestiture platform specializing in auction sales, negotiated sale transactions and government lease sales. Chris has been part of the EnergyNet team since 2002. He has been actively involved as the firm has completed over $10B in transactions including sell-side mandates from thousands of Exploration and Production clients. Chris leads a multi-disciplinary team of 50 professionals specializing in engineering, geology, land, technical, business development, marketing, application development and administration.

Chris has 25 years of experience in the energy industry. Chris graduated from Texas State in San Marcos with a business management and marketing degree. Prior to EnergyNet, Chris worked at the Enron Corporation in Houston, Texas

Chris currently serves as the president of the Houston Producers Forum and serves as the Business Development & Membership Chairman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America. In years past, Chris served as the Chairman of the Wildcatter’s Host Committee for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers and served as the Chairman for the SPE-Gulf Coast Section Business Development Group. Chris holds series 39, 22 and 63 SEC licenses.

Chris lives in Houston, Texas with his wife Mary and three children William, Andrew and Ava.

Danny Yick is senior director, Corporate Acquisitions and Divestitures. He joined ConocoPhillips in 2013.

Yick’s role involves a broad spectrum of responsibilities including mergers and acquisitions strategy, deal sourcing, structuring, asset divestitures, subsurface technical and financial evaluations, legal/commercial negotiations and leading cross-functional teams in the evaluation and execution of oil and gas investments. He has led, supported, and been involved in over $25B worth of transactions. These included key transactions such as the Concho, Shell Permian and Surmont acquisitions, Permian central basin platform disposition and Niobrara exit.

Yick launched his oil and gas career in 2004. Before joining ConocoPhillips, he held positions of increasing responsibility at several companies, including Petro-Canada, Devon Energy, Nexen, TD Securities and Vermilion Energy. His varied roles include production engineer, drilling engineer, completions engineer, field rotation wells supervisor, reservoir engineer, institutional equity research associate analyst and business development subsurface engineering professional.

Yick holds a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering with a minor in petroleum engineering from the University of Calgary. He is also a CFA® Charterholder. Yick currently serves on the DEI council at ConocoPhillips.

Pete has over 20 years of industry experience. He is currently the SVP-Development for Birch Resources.  Pete is formerly the VP-Geology for Rock Oil II in the N. Midland Basin and Rock Oil III in the Mid Continent.  Prior to Rock Oil, he was a Director at Wells Fargo, working in their A&D group.  Before Wells Fargo, he worked at Chevron, holding numerous roles in development, technology, exploration, and corporate planning.  Pete holds B.S. & M.S. degrees in Geology; and a M.B.A.

Dena Demboski currently serves as Vice President of Drilling and Completions at UpCurve Energy.  She is responsible for managing the execution of the drilling and completions programs for the company’s extended reach horizontal Wolfcamp wells that include multi-well zipper pad operations.  She also oversees the installation of production equipment, frac water management, coordinates ESG efforts on behalf of the company and provides technical support to onsite consultants, colleagues and financial backers. 

Prior to joining UpCurve Energy, Dena served in various other engineering roles at Linn Energy and ConocoPhillips/Burlington Resources.  She has over 19 years of engineering design and management experience in drilling, completions, and production operations across 13 different basins within the domestic United States.  She received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with a Business Management Certification from Texas A&M University in 2006.