PBIOS - October 2018 - 12

Honoree
Tim Leach - Oil Show Honoree
Concho Founder Destined for Leadership in Permian Basin
It's almost as if Tim
Leach was born to be an
oilman in the Permian
Basin. It may have taken
him a while to realize
it, but once he got to
Midland, he never left,
and his company is not
likely to leave either.
Leach is chairman
and chief executive officer of Midland-based Concho
Resources, one of the nation's largest oil and natural
gas producers. The son of a petroleum engineer, Leach
says he always wanted to build his own business, but oil
was not necessarily part of that dream.
Born in 1959, he followed his father to various
oil-producing regions throughout the United States,
and eventually settled with his family in Houston,
where he attended high school before moving on to
Texas A&M to study petroleum engineering.
Although oil was in his blood, Leach says he never
intended to follow his father into the industry, but
during the boom of 1978, there were plenty of
scholarship opportunities for students enrolled in
A&M's petroleum engineering program. Leach says
he figured he could start in petroleum engineering
and change to mechanical engineering later. But
after only one semester with his professors, he
realized petroleum engineering was a natural fit.
His road finally reached Midland in 1982, when he
graduated and went to work for Midland National
Bank. Taking night classes, he earned an MBA from
the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in 1984.
Ultimately, Leach became the bank's executive vice
president in charge of oil and gas lending.
The final step toward his destiny came in 1989,
when Leach accepted a position with Parker & Parsley,
12 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

a small Midland-based oil company focused on
Permian Basin production. Serving as the company's
president of engineering, he began formulating a
business model that he eventually used as part of
a four-man partnership that established Concho
Resources in 1997 as a Midland-based company that
would focus exclusively on the Permian Basin.
Having established roots in Midland, the partners
wanted their new company to be an asset to the
community, Leach says.
"I have lived through several ups and downs
in the oil and gas business, and we wanted to
build a company that was sustainable, that would
provide jobs and returns for shareholders," he
describes. "We wanted to build something that
really had not existed to that point and was
headquartered in Midland."
So, they established the company with a business
philosophy that valued quality assets, good people,
strong operational results and a solid balance
sheet. "We talked about those things on day one at
Concho, and 20 years later, we still are talking about
those things," Leach notes.
Today, Concho has 1,500 employees, is a
leading Permian Basin operator, ranks among
Texas' top 12 oil producers, and is New Mexico's
top oil producer. Concho operates more
than 6,000 wells and has enough reserves to
sustain its current drilling program for multiple
decades. Leach describes Concho as a pure-play
operator, committed to the Permian Basin, where
technological advancement continues to unlock
opportunities for new production.
He says the company has kept an eye on hot
resource plays across the country, but it never
found any that would compare with the Permian
or offer the efficiencies associated with a Midland
PBIOS - October 2018

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