Ben Dell
Managing Partner - Kimmeridge
Alex Inkster
Partner - Kimmeridge
David C. Lawler
Chief Executive Officer
Charles Griffie
Director
Grant Butkus
Director
Ben Dell
Managing Partner - Kimmeridge
Ben Dell is a Managing Partner of Kimmeridge, and oversees investment. He is closely involved in the screening of new geological opportunities and in the negotiation and execution of investment strategies.
Prior to founding Kimmeridge, Mr. Dell was a Senior Equity Research Analyst for Oil and Gas Exploration and Production (E&P) at Sanford C. Bernstein, where he was ranked first three times in the Institutional Investor Research Survey for coverage of E&Ps. Mr. Dell was also ranked for Natural Gas and for Oil Services and Equipment coverage. Mr. Dell joined Sanford C. Bernstein in 2003. Prior to joining Bernstein, Mr. Dell was employed at British Petroleum (BP) in its M&A and finance group. Before moving into the finance field, Mr. Dell also held positions as an exploration geologist and geophysicist across several of BP’s regional business units.
Mr. Dell has an undergraduate degree in Earth Sciences from St. Peter’s College, Oxford.
Alex Inkster
Partner - Kimmeridge
Alex Inkster is a Partner at Kimmeridge, responsible for screening new opportunities and managing the firm’s investments in South Texas.
Prior to this, Mr. Inkster was a Vice President in Alliance Bernstein’s Energy Investing Group. Mr. Inkster previously worked as a Senior Equity Research Associate for Global Integrated Oils at Sanford C. Bernstein, covering 18 of the largest integrated oil companies and refiners, and prior to that he worked at General Electric, completing the company’s financial management program and working in the Energy and Oil & Gas divisions.
Mr. Inkster holds a first class honors degree in Economics from University College London and is a CFA Charter holder.
David C. Lawler
Chief Executive Officer
David C. Lawler was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Kimmeridge Texas Gas and Director of Commonwealth LNG in June 2024. Lawler has over 33 years of experience in the energy sector. Prior to joining Kimmeridge Texas Gas, Lawler most recently served as the Chairman and President of BP America from 2020 to 2023. As the chief representative in the United States, Lawler led the collective efforts of bp’s businesses, representing 30,000 employees and capital deployed of $150+ billion since 2005. This role included the formation and implementation of the integrated US strategy to achieve net zero by 2050 in collaboration with the US Leadership Team, along with the oversight of the resilient hydrocarbons, convenience and mobility, and low carbon energy business units.
In addition to his role as Chairman and President of BP America, Lawler also served as CEO of bpx energy, bp’s onshore unconventional and midstream business from 2014 to 2023. In 2018, Lawler led the $10.5 billion acquisition of BHP’s onshore assets, the largest acquisition for bp in more than 20 years. Lawler built a world class team to operate and grow BHP’s assets, delivering significant year-on-year improvements in process safety, emissions, flaring, production, operating cost, capital efficiency and free cash flow, increasing the value of the business to more than $21 billion in 5 years.
Lawler joined bpx in 2014 from SandRidge Energy, a US-based oil and gas independent, where he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for three years. For four years prior to SandRidge, Lawler was Chief Executive Officer and President of PostRock Energy Corporation and its predecessor entities. Prior to PostRock, he worked for Shell E&P Company for 10 years in leadership and technical assignments within the deepwater and gulf coast business units and provided business planning and support to the CEO of Shell Americas. Lawler began his career as a Production Engineer with Conoco and as a Drilling Engineer with Burlington Resources.
A Denver native, Lawler graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering in 1990 before earning an MBA from Tulane University in 2003. He is also a Trustee of the Colorado School of Mines, appointed by Colorado Governor Jared Polis in 2022, and a director of LNG Energy Group (TSXV:LNGE), a regional growth platform based in Latin America. Lawler is also a Director of the American Petroleum Institute and served on the Executive Committee from 2020-2023.
Charles Griffie
Director
Mr. Griffie is a founding member of Alpha Business Advisors LLC and currently serves as a Managing Partner. Mr. Griffie previously served as the Senior Vice President of Engineering and Operations at Western Midstream Partners, LP. Prior to that, Mr. Griffie had an extensive career with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, where he held the position of Senior Vice President of U.S. Onshore Field Operations when Anadarko was acquired. Mr. Griffie was a founding executive and Senior Vice President of Operations, Midstream, and Marketing for Olympus Energy. Mr. Griffie is an independent director for privately held Koloma, Inc., a geologic hydrogen company, serving on the Audit and Risk committee. Mr. Griffie is also an independent director for Range Resources Corporation (RRC: NYSE), a publicly traded exploration and production company, serving on the Governance and Nomination and the ESG and Safety Committees.
Mr. Griffie earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA from the University of Colorado at Denver. He also completed the Program for Leadership Development – Executive Education at Harvard Business School. Mr. Griffie was recently recognized by the National Diversity Council as a top 100 Black Executive and top 100 Diverse Leaders in Energy.
Grant Butkus
Director
Grant Butkus is a Senior Advisor to the investment team at Kimmeridge. Prior to joining Kimmeridge, Mr. Butkus had over a decade of investment banking experience focused on traditional energy and energy transition. He was most recently a Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets in the Global Energy Group. Mr. Butkus began his career as a reservoir engineer at ConocoPhillips where he held various technical and business development roles in the company’s Lower 48 business unit.
Mr. Butkus holds a B.B.A. in Finance from Baylor University, a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Oklahoma and an M.B.A. from Rice University.