Southern Ute Indian Tribe Seal

History

Aka Energy Group, LLC was established in 2002 by the Southern Ute Indian Tribe (“Tribe”) to pursue business opportunities in the natural gas midstream sector of the energy industry outside the external boundaries of the Tribe’s reservation in southwestern Colorado.

The Southern Ute Indian Reservation lies in the northern half of the San Jan Basin, just north of the Colorado/New Mexico border. In the 1990’s, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe built substantial wealth and expertise in the natural gas industry based primarily on the Tribe’s land ownership in the San Juan Basin coalbed methane play. Recognizing the concentration of its assets, the Tribe set about diversifying its portfolio in the late 1990’s. Today, through a structure called the Southern Ute Growth Fund, the Tribe manages a diversified multi-billion dollar portfolio of investments both on and off the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, including substantial investments in oil and gas exploration, production, and midstream services; real estate, property development, and property management; sand and gravel; alternative energy; and a wide variety of private equity investments.

Aka got its start in the Denver Julesburg (DJ) Basin by purchasing the Gilcrest gas processing plant and the Kersey compressor station and completing the 12” Valley View pipeline. These assets are located in Weld County, Colorado. Aka has further developed both these facilities and the gathering systems associated with them to meet the needs of producers in the DJ Basin.

In 2004, Aka Energy purchased Frontier Field Services, LLC (“Frontier”) and Lumen Energy Corporation (“Lumen”), two midstream companies with headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These two companies’ assets included cryogenic plants and gathering and treating facilities which are located in Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and West Texas. Aka combined the two companies’ Tulsa staffs into one office and has maintained the Lumen and Frontier names because of customer familiarity. Many of the assets have been upgraded or expanded since Aka’s purchase, bringing additional value to existing customers and allowing Aka to provide service to new customers.

In 2005, Aka acquired the Empire Abo gas plant, which is located 25 miles west of Frontier’s Maljamar Gas Plant in southern New Mexico. These two gas plants and their gathering systems can handle over 100 mmcfd.

Since early 2005, Aka has grown by building new plants and systems rather than by acquisitions. Key projects have included:

  • Doubling the capacity of the Kelton cryogenic plant in the Texas Panhandle from 25 mmcfd to 50 mmcfd.
  • Rebuilding the Amber plant on central Oklahoma with a new cryogenic expander skid (30 mmcfd) and upgrading of the existing refrigeration plant.
  • Designing and building a new cryogenic Antelope Hills plant (25 mmcfd) in the Panhandle of Texas, which was sold in 2011.
  • Adding a second (8 mmcfd) cryogenic skid at the Kingman plant near Wichita, Kansas.
  • Building many new compressor stations and upgrading and expanding many others. Most recently, Aka installed a small refrigeration skid at a compressor station to service a handful of liquid-rich wells for a specific customer.
  • Adding hundreds of miles of gathering system to meet customer needs.

Aka is currently pursuing a number of opportunities in shale plays and expects to design and construct new facilities to service specific producer needs.