Talos Energy Inc., Houston, is looking at “a wide range of opportunities” for growth outside its core Gulf of Mexico territory as part of a push to become a leading pure-play offshore company.
The option of buying into other deepwater basins was one of the strategic elements president and chief executive officer Paul Goodfellow—a Shell veteran who joined the company in March—discussed last week as part of introducing to analysts and investors what he called an “enhanced corporate strategy” for Talos. Among the others: Generating an additional $100 million cash flow from a combination of cost cuts, better product pricing and other efficiencies.
“We see a wealth of opportunities in the Gulf of America and in other basins where we can leverage our capabilities,” Goodfellow said on a conference call. “We will explore the options available to us, apply strict criteria to the opportunities we evaluate and aim to acquire and develop projects with significant reserves and production.”
Goodfellow declined to get into details about where the Talos team might expand to, adding that he’s agnostic about specific regions but will look for acquisitions that would capitalize on the company’s expertise with midlife assets and infrastructure that isn’t being used its full potential.
“I personally have a bias to look for opportunities that deliver free cash flow in the nearer term,” Goodfellow said.
Founded in 2012, Talos has completed five acquisitions in the Gulf since 2020, most recently buying QuarterNorth Energy for nearly $1.3 billion last year (OGJ Online, Jan. 16, 2024). That deal helped lift average daily production to about 93,000 boe in 2024 from 66,000 the year before. In the first quarter of this year, that number rose to 101,000 boe/d.
Offshore business strategies
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Goodfellow told analysts he isn’t focused on a specific growth target for production but will instead make decisions primarily on how they will improve margins and add to cash flow. More broadly speaking, he said that offshore operators should get a tailwind from questions about the continued viability of some onshore basins as those regions’ top-tier inventory begins to fall off in the next few years (OGJ Online, May 22, 2025).
Shares of Talos (Ticker: TALO) finished trading last week at $9.35, level with where they had closed the previous Friday. Over the past 6 months, they are up slightly, growing the company’s market capitalization to nearly $1.7 billion.
Geert De Lombaerde | Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of business journalism experience and writes about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal and T&D World. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati and later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector as well as many of its publicly traded companies.
