LEADERSHIP

Matt Boyce PhD earned a B.S. and M.S. from the University of Arkansas in Geology. While earning his degree's Matt was fortunate enough to observe and learn from the discovery of the second unconventional at SEECO in the early 2000’s from Industry pioneer's and his advisor Dr. Walter Manger.

Matt decided after the completion of his Master’s degree to pursue a PhD at West Virginia University where he studied under Dr. Tim Carr. While there he worked with Dominion E&P (now CNX) on the initial exploration of the Marcellus in West Virginia. With the contributions from Dominion E&P as well as EQT Matt produced one the first and most widely used documents on the petrophysics and geology of the Marcellus for the area. In that same document Matt created a derivation of the Archie equation for unconventionals that later proved to have application outside of the Marcellus. 

After his PhD, Matt was hired by ExxonMobil (XOM) as a part of their petrophysics core group. At XOM, Matt worked several plays on the forefront of the global expansion of Unconventionals. He evaluated and operated wells in the following basins in the U.S: Permian, Paradox, Appalachia, Gulf Coast, Unita, Piceance, DJ , L.A., Anadarko, Michigan, Williston, and Sacramento basin’s. He was further tasked with evaluating and operating in multiple international plays such as Vaca Muerta, La Luna, Bowland, Dadas, McCarther Basin, Cooper Basin, Dnieper-Donets basin, Montney, Posadonia, and Baltic basin. Matt was fortunate to have worked and viewed the wide variety of unconventional plays that greatly enhanced his ability to find hydrocarbons in unconventionals. At XOM Matt was also tasked with working a number of conventional plays that included offshore Vietnam, Gulf Of Mexico and Offshore California.

In 2013, Matt moved to SWN where he used his dual skill sets in Petrophysics and Geology. His worked continued on finding new opportunities in the Permian, Paradox, Anadarko, Sand Wash and Appalachian basins. While at SWN Matt co-discovered a new patent (US 3005657A1) that greatly enhanced determining unconventional porosity using core NMR. This paper was later followed by a paper through SPE as paper 194484. The paper illustrated the usefulness of the method but also that in place values were two to three times larger than previously calculated for most Unconventional resources. Due to the patent SWN decided to build their own Core NMR lab that Matt co-constructed and where he became proficient at Core NMR acquisition and interpretation. In addition to the Core NMR Matt applied his learning's by co-developing a engineered completion based on the findings from NMR that yielded measurable increases in production. 

In 2018, Matt pursued a new venture that was EPOCH Consulting LLC. He applies his extensive background in petrophysics and geology to unconventional and conventional problems across industry. His clients enjoy the synergy that he applies between geology and petrophysics as well as how to incorporate it to other facets of their business. 

Andrew J. Zitterkopf is an engineer with over 19 years of experience in oil and gas operations, drilling, completions, reservoir engineering, exploration and field development. Andrew graduated from Texas Tech University with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (2001), Master of Business Administration from University of Texas at Austin (2015) and is a graduate of the Business Analytics Program at Harvard University. 

In 2001, he began his career in the US Domestic Group at ExxonMobil as a drilling engineer. While at ExxonMobil he had the privilege of being trained under Ed Dew, who is most known for the invention of Dew Plots in Engineering. From 2001-2002 Andrew worked in the Green River basin, Piceance Creek basin, Midland basin, Offshore California and Gulf of Mexico leading their drilling operations. While working in Wyoming, Andrew developed a method to use coiled tubing to drill wells to reduce cost and the environmental footprint of drilling operations. 

In 2003, Andrew worked in Equatorial Guinea executing planning, drilling and completion operations offshore in deep water as well as from the Jade Platform with Extended Reach Wells (ERD) reaching 26,000 ft MD. Later in 2005, Andrew was the lead engineer working in southern Chad performing drilling and completion operations on a full field development project in th Doba Basin as well as exploration drilling operations in eastern Chad (Doseo Basin). 

Andrew moved to Hess in 2008 to plan Offshore Ghana & Brazil Exploration wells. While in Ghana, Andrew planned, designed and drilled the $75MM Ankobra-1 well for Hess. He the prepared the exploration drilling programs for Hess’s future exploration wells in Brazil.

In 2009, Andrew moved to Southwestern Energy (SWN) where he oversaw two drilling rigs working in the Fayetteville Shale. Andrew was instrumental in helping reducing drill times from 14 days to 7 days which reduced cost by 30%. In 2011, Andrew made the technical switch to Reservoir Engineering and was the lead engineer for SWN’s OBO Team which oversaw 50MMCFD of production and an annual budget of $60MM. In addition, Andrew was involved with the Fayetteville Shale Planning & Reserves group where he helped oversee the $1B budget for the Fayetteville Shale and 2 BCFD production. Later in 2013, Andrew moved to the Exploration team and assisted in evaluating new greenfield assets for Southwestern Energy. 

In 2016, Andrew joined Grenadier Energy Partners as a Senior Staff Reservoir Engineer. He assisted GEP in A&D work, reserves, well planning, economics, and financial modeling. He assisted GEP with their acquisition of Howard County assets from Occidental Petroleum as well as bolt on opportunities. GEP grew to a 20,000 acres footprint in Howard County and 10,000 BOEPD of production. 

John has 14 years of in-house experience and independent consulting, working all aspects of the landman value chain. John obtained his BBA in Energy Commerce from Texas Tech University (2008) and an MBA from the University of Houston (2012). Prior to Epoch, he ran a land focused consulting firm with both operators and mineral owners as clients. Previously John has worked in-house for Noble Energy (Permian Team), Sabine Oil and Gas (East Texas, Eagle Ford & Louisiana), and Southwestern Energy (East Texas). John is a member and Certified Professional Landman through the American Association of Professional Landman, where he also has volunteered on several committees. He is also involved with a Houston Association of Professional Landman a current officer and has been a past director and chairmen for various committees. He is a Past-President of the North Houston Association of Professional Landmen and a member of the West Houston Association of Professional Landmen.  John is a Life Member of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on the Mutton Bustin Committee.