About Shale Exploration

Shale Exploration (Shale) is an independent Oil and Gas Exploration company with a management team whose combined experience is over fifty years in the industry. Shale has focused its operations primarily in North Dakota and Montana.

Our management has a proven track record developing and producing oil and gas prospects in every major oil and gas play in the United States. 

We are men and women who are industry professionals, who believe in doing it right or not doing it all. The men and women who make up the Shale Exploration Team encourage you to drop us a line and get to know us, we would like the opportunity of getting to know you and telling you about our company.

Sid J. Greehey – CEO , Principal - Shale Exploration, L.L.C.

Mr. Greehey has over 30 years experience in the oil and gas industry during his tenure with emphasis in property acquisitions, land leasing, and prospect generation. Mr. Greehey has worked with oil and gas exploration companies as a Landman and Land Manager with responsibilities of prospect generation and property acquisitions and divestitures. Mr. Greehey started his career at Border Exploration, which became part of Coastal States and left in 1983 to work with Bright & Company.   Mr. Greehey started and owned drilling Fluid companies, an oil field trucking company and salt water disposal operations. Integrity Industries was one of the first drilling fluid companies to do work in the Austin Chalk horizontal drilling play engineering and providing services for hundreds of wells. Integrity Industries is now part of the Weatherford companies.  He formed Greehey & Company and Greeheyco, Inc. in order to continue his personal exploration interests.  Mr. Greehey earned a BA from SMU University in 1979 with a minor in Petroleum Land Management from the University of Texas at Austin.  Mr. Greehey is on the Board of Directors of Lutheran High School and President of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in San Antonio.

F. Sam Tallis – President  & Principal of Shale Exploration, L.L.C.

Mr. Tallis is an Oil & Energy Professional with a Legal Background, J.D., Juris Doctorate of Law. Mr. Tallis is extremely proficient at originating, screening, assembling and marketing oil and gas exploration projects and prospects with a track record in multiple plays throughout North America. His technical areas of expertise covers a diverse range of trends across, multiple oil and gas plays and areas including, the Bakken Shale, Williston Basin, Barnett Shale, Eagle Ford Shale, Texas Gulf Coast and South Louisiana. As the President of Shale Exploration he employs state of the art technology in vertical and horizontal completions. This includes fracturing, seismic 3D, our proprietary innovative seismic 4D, and geochemistry. Mr. Tallis has over 20 years of experience in the oil and gas & real estate development sector, including extensive experience in complex land, legal and A&D related projects. Mr. Tallis has been instrumental in leasing over 1, 5000, 000 acres for multiple companies in multiple oil and gas plays. He has extensive experience as a Petroleum Landmanager (In-house, Field, Project Management, and Crew Management), as well as extensive experience in Petroleum Land Work (Multiple Phases, Multiple State Experience, Urban Acquisition Specialist). In addition to Oil and Gas, Mr. Tallis is a Real Property Acquisition Consultant with extensive background in Real Estate Development & Land Acquisition.

Favorite Quote:
"Always do right. this will gratify some and astonish the rest." -Mark Twain

Jacob Blubaugh – Vice President & General Manager of Operations - Shale Exploration, L.L.C.

Mr. Blubaugh has extensive in-house experience for multiple E&P Companies in multiple resource plays, in all phases of Petroleum Land Work, as well as Executive Management experience performing multiple phases and responsibilities for Oil and Gas Operators.  Mr. Blubaugh brings a degree in management, a certification in land practices from Texas Christian University, is a Registered Landman in the American Association of Professional Landmen and has over fifteen years’ experience managing operations of various Companies.

Dusty Browning – Land Manager & Director of Title Operations, Shale Exploration, L.L.C.

Mr. Browning has over 7 years of experience in the areas of title research, lease negotiation, and land management in multi-resource plays such as the Barnett Shale, Fayetteville Shale, and Bakken Shale, as well as conventional plays such as the Permian and Fort Worth Basins. He has been an instrumental part of assembling prospects from the lease to the pipeline that have resulted in industry classified "monster wells" in addition to divestitures that have resulted in multi-million dollar sales. He is an active member of the American Association of Professional Landmen and has received the Petroleum Land Practices Certificate from Texas Christian University.

John P. Zaccaria – Petroleum Engineer, Engineering Manager

Mr. Zaccaria has over 28 years experience in all phases of the oil and gas industry during his tenure with emphasis in property operations and production / completions engineering.  Mr. Zaccaria specializes in maximizing property value by increasing production efficiency while reducing operating and development costs. He has served as Engineering Manager for Greehey & Company and Greeheyco, Inc. since 2007.  Prior to Greeheyco, Mr. Zaccaria co-managed his own energy company for 10 years consisting of operations in excess of 95 wells in Texas.  Mr. Zaccaria has experience in most of the lower 48 states with extensive knowledge along the Texas Gulf Coast, South Texas and East Texas Regions.  Mr. Zaccaria received his Bachelors of Science in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1983 and is an Eagle Scout.

Daniel F. Knupp – Geophysicist, Chief Geophysicist and Co-Patent Holder -Sid Greehey
Mr. Knupp has over 25 years experience in geophysical applications in the oil and gas industry during his tenure with emphasis in 3D Seismic Visualization.  Mr. Knupp pioneered 3D seismic visualization while at Exxon Research and Development Critical Technologies Division and received a patent on the technology 2 years after leaving Exxon. Mr. Knupp’s geophysical background includes Seismic Data Acquisition, Seismic Data Processing, Geophysical Modeling, Seismic Interpretation, 3D Visualization, Network Design, Management and Pioneering Entrepreneurship.   In addition to Exxon, Mr. Knupp has worked with Western Geophysical, Veritas DGC, Edge Petroleum and Blackstone Oil and Gas. Mr. Knupp formed Integrated Visualization Technologies, Inc. to perform Visualization Consulting services worldwide. Mr. Knupp has a Bachelors of Science in Geophysics from Texas A&M University in 1984 and received his Masters in Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas in 1991