Todd Stevens Redux As Oil Firm CEO

It didn’t take long for Todd Stevens to get back into the oil and natural gas industry.

Stevens, the former chief executive of California Resources Corp., the Santa Clarita oil and gas production company, left that firm at the end of last year. By March he was incorporating his new company, Black Knight Energy.     

In August, Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors in Los Angeles announced it would invest $500 million into the company, which is in Santa Clarita. 

“It was the right fit,” Stevens said of the participation of Kayne Anderson. “They share my values and that was something that was important to me.”

Even before the investment documents were finalized, Black Knight and Kayne Anderson were bidding on $1 billion in energy assets for sale. Although they didn’t win, it was telling that that the private equity firm was willing to work off a handshake, Stevens said, adding, “they are solid individuals.”

 Black Knight is pursuing the acquisition and development of oil and natural gas fields across the continental U.S. 

“It could be we acquire a company and run it the way we want to run it,” Stevens said. “More likely, the targets are going to be producing oil and gas assets in the lower 48.” 

Along with Stevens, the seven other employees of Black Knight – named, by the way, after the athletic teams of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where Stevens went to school – include Darren Williams as chief operating officer and Elizabeth DeStephens as chief strategy and sustainability officer. Like Stevens, they used to work at California Resources. 

Working at California Resources taught him how to operate in very regulated and heavily politicized environment, Stevens said. 

As former Gov. Jerry Brown once told Stevens: the problem with any topic that becomes politicized is the facts don’t matter.

“You cannot just assume the facts are going to win out the day,” Stevens noted. “When something becomes politicized, you need to take an extra effort to explain to people what you do, what you don’t do and the good you bring to society and how that helps underpin the economy in California and the economy in the United States.” 

Which is why it is important to have domestic oil and natural gas production in this country, Stevens said. He called it not only a national security issue but an environmental stewardship issue as well. 

He is not worried about oil extraction as the state and country move toward a future of electric vehicles. After all, there are many other uses for petroleum than gasoline, Stevens said, such as making solar panels and wind turbines.

“We are going to need oil and natural gas production as the grease for the economy to keep going for a long time,” Stevens said.