Houston financial services firm brings onboard energy veteran

who's who

Pickering Energy Partners entered into a collaborative partnership with Rick Mauro to support clients in carbon sequestration and methane mitigation efforts. Photo courtesy of Pickering Energy Partners

A Houston-based energy-focused financial services platform has brought onboard an industry veteran to offer a unique insight to its clients.

Pickering Energy Partners announced a collaborative partnership with energy veteran Rick Mauro to further support clients in carbon sequestration and methane mitigation efforts.

PEP ESG Consulting team’s clients will have access to comprehensive strategic and technical consulting services, which will cover a broader spectrum of environmental and sustainability needs according to the company.

Mauro brings energy transition and oil and gas expertise through his career at Halliburton and Mobil Oil. He has hands-on experience in various operational settings like onshore and offshore assets in North America, Australia, Asia Pacific, and Kuwait with his geology background. He also advises client teams at Halliburton subsidiary Landmark Services Line and consulting firm Decision Strategies.

“Rick’s extensive work with constituents across multiple organizational levels, from operations to executive management, brings a versatile and well-informed viewpoint to our projects,” Dan Romito, head of PEP ESG Consulting, says in a news release. “Our goal is to offer energy-focused clients a well-rounded and technically proficient approach to ESG benchmarking and reporting.”

Jason Kivett and Robyn Underwood join Houston-based energy finance firm Pickering Energy Partners. Photo courtesy of PEP

Houston energy financial firm names new execs

new hires

A firm focused on financial services within the energy sector has named two former Barclays investment bankers to its team.

Pickering Energy Partners announced that Jason Kivett and Robyn Underwood will join PEP to lead its traditional Energy Investment Banking Practice as managing directors. The team Kivett and Underwood join focuses on traditional oil and gas and will partner with the existing Renewables and Energy Transition advisory team, per a news release.

"Our clients turn to us for our dedication to the energy sector, and our ability to get deals done," Dan Pickering, chief investment officer of Pickering Energy Partners, says in a news release. “As the industry seeks more innovative financial solutions than ever before, our team is ready to support that demand."

With the expansion of this team, PEP has more than doubled its M&A advisory and capital raising team and its advisers worked on over $100 billion in transactions across corporate mergers, acquisitions, and more.

PEP also announced that Osmar Abib has joined the PEP Advisory Board. He worked over two decades with Credit Suisse and served most recently as the chairman of the Global Energy Group based in Houston and New York.

Another addition to the firm’s expanding investment banking platform, Osmar Abib joins the PEP Advisory Board. Abib provides rich market insights based on his experience as the former Global Head of Energy Investment Banking for Credit Suisse.

“Experience matters and we appreciate the deeply rooted relationships our new team members have developed over their careers,” Walker Moody, president of Pickering Energy Partners, adds in the release. “The PEP Investment Banking team knows energy, and they understand operators. We continue to play offense and bring on talented, experienced professionals to benefit our clients.”

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Oxy subsidiary granted landmark EPA permits for carbon capture facility

making progress

Houston’s Occidental Petroleum Corp., or Oxy, and its subsidiary 1PointFive announced that the U.S Environmental Protection Agency approved its Class VI permits to sequester carbon dioxide captured from its STRATOS Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility near Odessa. These are the first such permits issued for a DAC project, according to a news release.

The $1.3 billion STRATOS project, which 1PointFive is developing through a joint venture with investment manager BlackRock, is designed to capture up to 500,000 metric tons of CO2 annually and is expected to begin commercial operations this year. DAC technology pulls CO2 from the air at any location, not just where carbon dioxide is emitted. Major companies, such as Microsoft and AT&T, have secured carbon removal credit agreements through the project.

The permits are issued under the Safe Drinking Water Act's Underground Injection Control program. The captured CO2 will be stored in geologic formations more than a mile underground, meeting the EPA’s review standards.

“This is a significant milestone for the company as we are continuing to develop vital infrastructure that will help the United States achieve energy security,” Vicki Hollub, Oxy president and CEO, said in a news release.“The permits are a catalyst to unlock value from carbon dioxide and advance Direct Air Capture technology as a solution to help organizations address their emissions or produce vital resources and fuels.”

Additionally, Oxy and 1PointFive announced the signing of a 25-year offtake agreement for 2.3 million metric tons of CO2 per year from CF Industries’ upcoming Bluepoint low-carbon ammonia facility in Ascension Parish, Louisiana.

The captured CO2 will be transported to and stored at 1PointFive’s Pelican Sequestration Hub, which is currently under development. Eventually, 1PointFive’s Pelican hub in Louisiana will include infrastructure to safely and economically sequester industrial emissions in underground geologic formations, similar to the STRATOS project.

“CF Industries’ and its partners' confidence in our Pelican Sequestration Hub is a validation of our expertise managing carbon dioxide and how we collaborate with industrial organizations to become their commercial sequestration partner,” Jeff Alvarez, President of 1PointFive Sequestration, said in a news release.

1PointFive is storing up to 20 million tons of CO2 per year, according to the company.

“By working together, we can unlock the potential of American manufacturing and energy production, while advancing industries that deliver high-quality jobs and economic growth,” Alvarez said in a news release.

Houston energy-focused AI platform raises $5M in Mercury-led seed round

fresh funding

Houston-based Collide, a provider of generative artificial intelligence for the energy sector, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Houston’s Mercury Fund.

Other investors in the seed round include Bryan Sheffield, founder of Austin-based Parsley Energy, which was acquired by Dallas-based Pioneer Natural Resources in 2021; Billy Quinn, founder and managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm Pearl Energy Investments; and David Albin, co-founder and former managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm NGP Capital Partners.

“(Collide) co-founders Collin McLelland and Chuck Yates bring a unique understanding of the oil and gas industry,” Blair Garrou, managing partner at Mercury, said in a news release. “Their backgrounds, combined with Collide’s proprietary knowledge base, create a significant and strategic moat for the platform.”

Collide, founded in 2022, says the funding will enable the company to accelerate the development of its GenAI platform. GenAI creates digital content such as images, videos, text, and music.

Originally launched by Houston media organization Digital Wildcatters as “a professional network and digital community for technical discussions and knowledge sharing,” the company says it will now shift its focus to rolling out its enterprise-level, AI-enabled solution.

Collide explains that its platform gathers and synthesizes data from trusted sources to deliver industry insights for oil and gas professionals. Unlike platforms such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, Collide’s platform “uniquely accesses a comprehensive, industry-specific knowledge base, including technical papers, internal processes, and a curated Q&A database tailored to energy professionals,” the company said.

Collide says its approximately 6,000 platform users span 122 countries.

CenterPoint reports progress on grid improvements ahead of 2025 hurricane season

grid resilience

As part of an ongoing process to make Houston better prepared for climate disasters, CenterPoint Energy announced its latest progress update on the second phase of the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative (GHRI).

CenterPoint reported that it has completed 70 percent of its resiliency work and all GHRI-related actions are expected to be complete before the official start of the 2025 hurricane season.

"Our entire CenterPoint Houston Electric team is focused on completing this historic suite of grid resiliency actions before the start of hurricane season,” Darin Carroll, Senior Vice President of CenterPoint's Electric Business, said in a news release. “That is our goal, and we will achieve it. To date, we have made significant progress as part of this historic effort.”

CenterPoint’s resiliency solutions include clearing higher-risk vegetation across thousands of miles of power lines, adding thousands more automation devices capable of self-healing, installing thousands of storm-resistant poles, and undergrounding hundreds of miles of power lines.

CenterPoint's GHRI efforts, which entered a second phase in September 2024, aim to improve overall grid resiliency and reliability and are estimated to reduce outages for customers by more than 125 million minutes annually, according to the company. It has undergrounded nearly 350 miles of power lines, about 85 percent of the way toward its target of 400 miles, which will help improve resiliency and reduce the risk of outages. CenterPoint also aims to install the first of 100 new local weather monitoring stations by June 1.

In March, CenterPoint cleared 655 miles of high-risk vegetation near power lines, installed 1,215 automated reliability devices capable of self-healing, and added an additional 3,300 storm-resilient poles.

In April, CenterPoint will begin building a network of 100 new weather monitoring stations, which will provide 24/7 weather monitoring and storm response preparation.

“We will continue to work every day to complete these critical improvements as part of our company's goal of building the most resilient coastal grid in the country,” Carroll added in the release.

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