Pytheas Energy

Pytheas Energy uses proprietary AI to acquire and revitalize oil and gas wells that “big oil” ignores.

America’s infrastructure is aging. More than 760,000 oil wells across the nation are known as “stripper” wells. These are mature oil-producing wells that have entered the late stage of their decline curve. But with proper operation and maintenance, they can still produce oil for another fifteen to twenty years.

Major producers in the oil & gas market tend to divest or ignore these wells. But there’s money to be made with them, either through acquisition and/or revitalization. The problem is that the traditional ways of evaluating them are manual, slow, and expensive. The result is capital gets wasted on bad deals, and high-upside wells never get identified or optimized.

This is where Pytheas can play a major role. Its technology analyzes millions of public data points to identify high-value, overlooked wells fast — turning these aging wells into revenue generators.

The company’s AI can evaluate potential deals ninety-percent faster than traditional tech. Smart sensors and remote monitoring assist in revitalizing these underperforming wells and helping them run more efficiently.

This is a big opportunity. According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are about 3.5 million unplugged abandoned wells in the U.S. And efforts to remediate these wells are gaining steam.

Industry analysts project that global spending on well-plugging and abandonment services will rise from about two billion dollars in 2022 to nearly four billion dollars by 2030.

To generate revenue, Pytheas acquires, optimizes, and monetizes the wells it identifies. It sells either the oil the wells produce or even the wells themselves once restored.

Pytheas has shown what it can do. It demonstrated a four-times increase in production on a twenty-oil-well proof-of-concept, while also achieving a fifty-percent operating-cost reduction. It also acquired a 113-well asset and generated a return to investors in the project of 100% returns after just one year.

Pytheas is ready to scale, and believes its results are repeatable. As the company says, “The math is simple: we’re picking better wells faster, then running them more efficiently. With a 70% reduction in admin time, 40% faster decisions, 40% lower maintenance costs, and 20% lower energy costs, our automation turns mature wells into a scalable platform, not a high-touch headache.”

Team Background

Josh Zuker - Co-Founder & CEO

Throughout his career, Josh has acquired and divested multiple oil & gas assets.

Most recently, he was a member of Zoic Energy Partners, an oil & gas exploration and production business. Before that, he spent eight years as a partner with ELIV8, a managing-consulting and marketing firm.

Earlier in his career, Josh was VP of Business Development with California Clean Air Technologies, a company developing technologies to increase the efficiency of heavy-duty diesel engines. Prior to that, he was VP of Operations with Millennium Financial, a financial-services company.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Loyola University Chicago and an MBA from Pepperdine.

Gary Collins - Technical Team

Gary is one of the top drilling engineers in the world. He’s held senior drilling-engineer positions at Conoco Phillips (fifteen years) and, before that, worked with Marathon Oil for twenty-four years.

Throughout his career, he’s earned several patents related to drilling and completion technologies. He’s also written many well-respected technical articles.

Gary holds a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Gasoline from Texas A&I University.

Hal Matheson - Co-Founder & VP of Investor Relations

Hal has twenty years of experience across the energy, tech, and manufacturing industries, including twelve years focused on the oil & gas sector.

In addition to his role with Pytheas, he is a broker with Monique Matheson Properties, a residential and commercial real-estate business. He also owns AYA Global, a distribution company specializing in liquidations and closeouts of various products.

Hal holds a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Touro University.

Co-Investors