Kelcy Warren’s Energy Transfer added one of its largest recent deals when the company purchased Crestwood Equity Partners for $7.1 billion, strengthening its position in some of the busiest oil and gas producing regions in the country. The acquisition builds on Energy Transfer‘s presence in the Permian Basin and Bakken Shale while pushing the company into the emerging Powder River Basin.
Warren described the fit between the two companies as a natural one. “They are very compatible,” he said of Crestwood’s connectivity to Energy Transfer’s existing network, noting that some capital construction would still be needed to fully link the systems together.
Part of a Larger Pattern
The Crestwood purchase follows a string of recent acquisitions under Kelcy Warren, including Enable Midstream and Lotus Midstream, as Energy Transfer has continued to consolidate the midstream sector. That strategy has defined much of Warren’s tenure since he co-founded the company in 1996 with about 200 miles of East Texas natural gas pipeline.
Warren has been candid about the limits of long range planning in building Energy Transfer into its current size. “I’d like to tell you that we saw everything in advance and we’re smarter than everybody else, but that’s just not true,” he said. “We’ve been very reactive here, but I think our reactions have been pretty good.”
More Deals Ahead
With Crestwood integrated into the fold, Kelcy Warren has signaled that Energy Transfer will keep looking for assets that fit the company’s network. “There’s fewer and fewer, one by one we’re checking ’em off,” he said. “But there’s still some really good assets out there that we’ve got our eyes on that we think fit us really, really well.” Warren has also pointed to international growth and expansion into LNG and petrochemicals as future priorities for the company.
The Crestwood deal also fits a broader pattern that has defined Kelcy Warren’s leadership since Energy Transfer’s founding in 1996. Rather than mapping out every acquisition years in advance, Kelcy Warren has built the company by watching for openings and moving quickly once the right assets became available, a habit that traces back to the years following the Enron collapse when he first learned to act fast on unexpected opportunities. See related link for more information.
Find more information about Warren on https://www.energytransfer.com/leadership/