Drilling deep


Finalist
Energy

When William Transier and John Seitz co-founded their company in 2004, they wrote personal checks to get it up and running.

North Sea New Ventures — the predecessor of Endeavour International Corp. — was founded as an oil and gas exploration company, and Transier was determined to build the company from the ground up.

Today, the co-founder, chairman, president and CEO uses the operating and commercial expertise he gained as a member of multifunction executive teams to run the successful company. During the last six years, Transier’s relentless commitment and tenacious spirit has been the difference between completing a deal and drilling a well.

With operations in London, Oslo and Aberdeen, he has overcome cultural differences, unprecedented commodity prices and a global recession to create a burgeoning energy company with a balanced exploration and production platform.

At the time of its formation, Endeavour was the only U.S.-based oil and gas company with a total focus on the North Sea. In the past, that had been the dominion of major exploration and production companies with diverse portfolios and an inherently larger overhead, but the U.K. sought to attract smaller, independent companies to further develop the region.

Following complicated market changes, including record-high commodity prices and governmental changes, Transier sought shorter cycle times and lower-cost opportunities in the U.S. on-shore arena to balance the longer and more expensive nature of its North Sea projects. That shift was followed by a dramatic move in which Transier announced the company is studying a full range of options to unlock the underlying value of its North Sea assets as it considers alternatives including selling specific assets or the entire North Sea business, entering into joint ventures to accelerate North Sea activities or continuing to execute the current plan.

How to reach: Endeavour International Corp., www.endeavourcorp.com or (713) 307-8700