You probably don't hear much about Carrizo Oil and Gas these days. Honestly, that's because the company technically doesn't exist anymore, at least not under that name. It was swallowed up in a massive merger back in 2019, right before the world turned upside down. But for a long time, if you were looking at the Texas energy scene, Carrizo was the name on everyone’s lips. They were the scrappy Houston-based independent that basically bet the farm on shale. And for a while, it worked.
Houston is full of these stories. Small players that strike it rich in the dirt and then get bought out by the bigger fish. Carrizo Oil and Gas followed that script almost perfectly. S.P. "Chip" Johnson IV co-founded it back in 1993, and he stayed at the helm for decades. Think about that for a second. In an industry where CEOs change like the seasons, having the same guy in charge from the early 90s until the final sale is almost unheard of. It gave the company a specific kind of personality—aggressive, lean, and very focused on the next big play.
Why the Carrizo Oil and Gas Exit Still Matters
When Callon Petroleum announced they were buying Carrizo for about $3.2 billion, including debt, people were skeptical. You've gotta remember the context of late 2019. Investors were starting to get tired of the "growth at all costs" model that had defined the shale boom. They wanted returns. They wanted dividends. They didn't just want more wells.
The merger was messy. If you look back at the filings, institutional investors like Kimmeridge Energy Management weren't happy. They pushed back. They thought the deal undervalued the assets or didn't make strategic sense. It was a classic boardroom brawl. Eventually, the deal went through, but it signaled the end of an era for Carrizo. It was no longer the independent wildcatter; it was part of a larger machine trying to survive a volatile market.
Why should you care now? Because the assets Carrizo owned—specifically those prime acres in the Eagle Ford Shale and the Permian Basin—are still producing today. They are the backbone of the American energy independence narrative. If you want to understand why gas prices fluctuate or how the U.S. became a global oil powerhouse, you have to look at the footprints left by companies like Carrizo Oil and Gas.
The Eagle Ford Obsession
Carrizo was synonymous with the Eagle Ford. While everyone else was rushing to the Permian in West Texas, Carrizo doubled down on the South Texas dirt. They had over 100,000 acres there at one point. It was their "cash cow."
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Shale drilling is a brutal business. It’s expensive. It’s technically demanding. You’re essentially blasting rock thousands of feet underground to release trapped bubbles of gas and oil. Carrizo got really good at it. They lowered their drilling costs faster than many of their peers. They were obsessed with "lateral lengths"—basically how far they could drill horizontally once they hit the target depth. Longer laterals meant more oil for roughly the same cost of moving the rig. It was an efficiency game, and they were winning.
But the debt. Oh, the debt.
That was always the shadow hanging over Carrizo Oil and Gas. To buy all that land and drill all those wells, they had to borrow billions. In the oil business, debt is a high-stakes poker game. If oil stays at $100 a barrel, you’re a genius. If it drops to $30, you’re in deep trouble. Carrizo spent years walking that tightrope. They were constantly selling off "non-core" assets—like their acreage in the Marcellus Shale or the Niobrara—just to keep the balance sheet from collapsing.
The Permian Pivot and the Final Act
Toward the end, Carrizo realized they couldn't just be an Eagle Ford company. They needed to be in the Delaware Basin, which is part of the broader Permian. They spent big to get in there. In 2017, they dropped $648 million to buy assets from ExL Petroleum. It was a bold move, but some analysts thought they paid too much.
This is where the story gets complicated. The Permian is the holy grail of oil, but it’s crowded and expensive. Carrizo was trying to play catch-up. By the time 2019 rolled around, the industry was consolidating. Small and mid-cap companies were realizing they didn't have the "scale" to compete with the Exxons and Chevrolets of the world.
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The merger with Callon was supposed to fix that. It was pitched as a "merger of equals," though Callon was the surviving brand. It created a company with a huge footprint across the two most important oil fields in the country. But for the employees and the long-time shareholders of Carrizo Oil and Gas, it was the end of a very long, very loud chapter in Houston's energy history.
What the Analysts Missed
Most people looking at Carrizo just saw the stock ticker (CRZO). They saw the fluctuations in daily production. But they missed the technical innovation. Carrizo was an early adopter of "pad drilling," where you put multiple wells on a single small piece of land to reduce the environmental footprint and speed up operations. They weren't just pumping oil; they were refining the process of how to get it out of the ground more cheaply.
There’s a lesson there for anyone looking at the energy sector today. It’s not just about who has the most land. It’s about who has the best data and the best engineering. Carrizo’s engineers were known for being some of the best in the business, which is why Callon was so eager to fold them into their own operations.
Navigating the Legacy of Carrizo Today
If you’re an investor or just someone interested in the history of the Texas oil boom, you can’t find Carrizo on the Nasdaq anymore. You have to look at Callon Petroleum—and actually, as of 2024, Apache Corp (APA Corporation) acquired Callon. So, the old Carrizo assets have been folded twice now. They are part of a massive, global portfolio.
It’s kind of wild to think about. That land in LaSalle County or McMullen County that Chip Johnson and his team scouted decades ago is now being managed by a global powerhouse. The "Carrizo" name is mostly found in old SEC filings and on rusty wellhead signs in the Texas scrubland.
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Key Takeaways for Evaluating Former Shale Stars:
- Asset Quality Over Name Recognition: The reason Carrizo was bought wasn't for its brand; it was for the geology. In the oil world, rock is king. If the rock is good, someone will eventually buy it.
- Debt is a Double-Edged Sword: Carrizo's aggressive growth was fueled by leverage. While it allowed them to scale, it also forced their hand into a merger when the market turned sour on high-debt operators.
- Consolidation is Inevitable: The story of Carrizo Oil and Gas is the story of the entire shale industry. Small players innovate, prove the concept, and then get absorbed by larger companies that can afford the massive infrastructure costs.
Practical Steps for Tracking Energy Assets
If you are trying to follow where these assets went or how they are performing now, don't look for the old company names.
- Check the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) Records: You can search by lease name or location. Many of the wells originally permitted by Carrizo are still active. They just have different operators listed now.
- Monitor APA Corporation (Apache) Filings: Since they are the ultimate "grandparent" of the Carrizo assets, their quarterly reports will give you the best insight into how those Eagle Ford and Permian acres are actually producing in today's economy.
- Watch the Secondary Market: Often, when a big company like Apache buys a smaller one like Callon/Carrizo, they sell off the "small" pieces that don't fit their strategy. This creates opportunities for new, smaller private equity-backed firms to step in.
The story of Carrizo Oil and Gas isn't just about a business that went away. It’s about how the American energy landscape was rebuilt, one horizontal well at a time. It was a high-risk, high-reward game that fundamentally changed how the world gets its power. Whether you loved them or hated them, you can't deny they had some serious guts.
To understand the current state of the market, look at the production data coming out of the Eagle Ford. It’s still one of the most productive regions in the world, and much of that is thanks to the groundwork laid by the people at Carrizo. They might be gone from the stock exchange, but their impact is literally still being pumped out of the ground every single day.