The Energy Conversation Happening in Dallas
There is something fitting about gathering a room full of executives and investors in Dallas to talk energy. The city has always been a barometer for the industry, and this week it lived up to that reputation.
As part of Vested’s quarterly executive dinner series, we hosted an evening at the Hotel Crescent Court in partnership with Rockport Companies, a veteran-owned family of private energy firms with deep operational and investment experience across asset operations, drilling fund investments, and mineral and royalty acquisitions. Two dozen executives and investors came together for what turned into one of the sharper, more candid conversations we have had at one of these events. Three themes drove the table conversations.
Where Does Oil Go From Here?
The first question on the table was the simplest and the most contested: where does WTI Crude land by year-end?
The group worked through it from multiple angles, considering OPEC+ supply discipline, the pace of U.S. shale activity, and the durability of global demand. By the time the conversation settled, the table had converged around $85 per barrel. Not a consensus born of agreement, but one earned through debate.
It is a number that reflects cautious optimism. The structural ceiling on prices remains intact. So does the floor.
The SpaceX Question Nobody Can Stop Asking
It was fortuitous timing: SpaceX’s S-1 landed the same day as our investor dinner. The company was already on people’s minds before the first course arrived.
The company has become a kind of Rorschach test for how investors think about risk, growth, and valuation in the current environment. Estimates around the table for its worth at the close of an IPO ran from $1.5 trillion to $2.5 trillion. The range itself tells a story: there is no clean comparator. SpaceX sits at the intersection of defense, logistics, communications, and exploration in a way that traditional frameworks struggle to price.
What made the conversation interesting was less the numbers and more what the disagreement revealed about how the room was thinking about long-duration, high-conviction bets.
The Energy Story Nobody Is Pricing In Yet
The most substantive thread of the evening centered on AI and natural gas, and it may be the most consequential discussion the group had.
The argument is straightforward once you lay it out: the data centers being built to power artificial intelligence require enormous, uninterrupted electricity. Renewable sources, for all their growth, cannot yet provide the baseload reliability those facilities require at scale. Natural gas can. That makes it not just a transition fuel but a structural necessity for the buildout of AI infrastructure.
The group’s view was that this dynamic is real, growing, and not yet fully reflected in how markets are pricing natural gas assets or the companies that produce and deliver them. Whether that gap closes through higher prices, increased investment, or both, the implications for energy fund managers like Rockport are significant.
A Room Worth Being In
These dinners work when the people around the table are willing to engage honestly, and this one delivered that. The conversation ranged across geopolitics, capital markets, and technology in ways that are hard to replicate in a conference setting.
We are grateful to Rockport Companies and their CIO, Dax Atkinson, for the partnership, and to everyone who made time to be there.The next dinner in the series is coming. If you are interested in attending or partnering with us, shoot me a note at eric@fullyvested.com.
