Few executives in the pipeline business can match the acquisition record built by Kelcy Warren over the past two decades. Since co-founding Energy Transfer in 1996, Warren has overseen a string of deals that transformed a small East Texas natural gas operator into one of the largest midstream companies in North America.
The pace picked up noticeably starting in 2014, when Energy Transfer acquired Susser Holdings. Regency Energy Partners, PennTex Midstream Partners, USA Compression Partners and SemGroup followed in the years after, each adding new pieces to the company’s growing footprint.
A Steady Stream of Deals
Kelcy Warren has said much of this growth came from necessity as often as opportunity. Falling natural gas prices once pushed Energy Transfer to diversify into natural gas liquids through the purchase of Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy. A chance to buy Sunoco for $5.3 billion in 2012 gave the company a foothold in crude oil, a deal Warren has described as one of the most meaningful of his career given his father’s decades working as a pipeline field hand at the company.
More recently, Energy Transfer has continued its consolidation strategy with the purchases of Enable Midstream and Lotus Midstream, along with a $7.1 billion deal for Crestwood Equity Partners that expanded the company’s presence in the Permian Basin, Bakken Shale and Powder River Basin.
Looking at What Comes Next
Kelcy Warren has framed the company’s approach as opportunistic rather than tightly scripted. “We’ve been very reactive here, but I think our reactions have been pretty good,” he said. With fewer large acquisition targets remaining in North America, Warren has pointed to international markets, along with LNG and petrochemicals, as the next arenas where Energy Transfer plans to keep growing.
That growth has not come without its own maintenance work. Kelcy Warren has said the company constantly looks for ways to tighten operations across a network built through so many separate deals. “We always try to make our machine more efficient,” he said. “If you’re a good pipeliner, you’ll never have the perfect system.” That combination of steady dealmaking and ongoing upkeep has defined Warren’s approach since the earliest days of Energy Transfer, when the company owned only a couple hundred miles of pipeline in East Texas. Visit this page for additional information.
Find more information about Warren on https://texasbusiness.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Kelcy-Warren-Bio.pdf
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Few executives in the pipeline business can match the acquisition record built by Kelcy Warren over the past two decades. Since co-founding Energy Transfer in 1996, Warren has overseen a string of deals that transformed a small East Texas natural gas operator into one of the largest midstream companies in North America.
The pace picked up noticeably starting in 2014, when Energy Transfer acquired Susser Holdings. Regency Energy Partners, PennTex Midstream Partners, USA Compression Partners and SemGroup followed in the years after, each adding new pieces to the company’s growing footprint.
A Steady Stream of Deals
Kelcy Warren has said much of this growth came from necessity as often as opportunity. Falling natural gas prices once pushed Energy Transfer to diversify into natural gas liquids through the purchase of Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy. A chance to buy Sunoco for $5.3 billion in 2012 gave the company a foothold in crude oil, a deal Warren has described as one of the most meaningful of his career given his father’s decades working as a pipeline field hand at the company.
More recently, Energy Transfer has continued its consolidation strategy with the purchases of Enable Midstream and Lotus Midstream, along with a $7.1 billion deal for Crestwood Equity Partners that expanded the company’s presence in the Permian Basin, Bakken Shale and Powder River Basin.
Looking at What Comes Next
Kelcy Warren has framed the company’s approach as opportunistic rather than tightly scripted. “We’ve been very reactive here, but I think our reactions have been pretty good,” he said. With fewer large acquisition targets remaining in North America, Warren has pointed to international markets, along with LNG and petrochemicals, as the next arenas where Energy Transfer plans to keep growing.
That growth has not come without its own maintenance work. Kelcy Warren has said the company constantly looks for ways to tighten operations across a network built through so many separate deals. “We always try to make our machine more efficient,” he said. “If you’re a good pipeliner, you’ll never have the perfect system.” That combination of steady dealmaking and ongoing upkeep has defined Warren’s approach since the earliest days of Energy Transfer, when the company owned only a couple hundred miles of pipeline in East Texas. Visit this page for additional information.
Find more information about Warren on https://texasbusiness.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Kelcy-Warren-Bio.pdf