PG exclusive: Range Resources names new president and CEO
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Jeffrey L. Ventura will succeed John H. Pinkerton as the president and CEO of Range Resources in a management move that puts an early proponent of Marcellus Shale development at the head of the Texas energy firm.
Mr. Ventura, who had served as president and chief operating officer of the Fort Worth company, was perhaps the single most influential executive in the development of the Marcellus Shale, having persuaded his company's management in 2003 to explore extraction opportunities in what was then considered a low-level, dried-up basin in Appalachia.
On Jan.1, 2012, he will replace Mr. Pinkerton, 57, who becomes the executive chairman of the board after a nearly 20-year tenure as CEO. The transition was approved Thursday and announced early Monday morning.
Mr. Ventura joined Range Resources in 2003 and immediately began looking for "low-risk, repeatable" energy opportunities, he said. He and the company's vice president of technology, William Zagorski, suggested to management that they explore what was then called the "Pennsylvania shale play" of natural gas.
Mr. Zagorski saw similarities between the Marcellus Shale and the Barnett Shale in Texas, which had natural gas extracted through horizontal drilling techniques.
In 2004, the company started securing land leases in Pennsylvania and had invested more than $150 million into what was essentially an exploratory "science project," said Mr. Pinkerton. The firm now has nearly 500 wells drilled in the Marcellus Shale and its stock price has increased nearly tenfold to around $50 per share.
The Appalachia operation, which Mr. Ventura also convinced the company to move from Ohio to Pittsburgh, employs about 300 workers -- more than double the manpower at the Texas headquarters. Range Resources has 850 employees.
Mr. Ventura, 53, assumes control at a time of big-checkbook competition in the shale gas industry. Major energy players like ExxonMobil and Chevron have acquired local companies with Western Pennsylvania acreage for billions of dollars in recent years.
First Published June 27, 2011 4:02 am
