Five Point Infrastructure LLC (formerly known as Five Point Energy, “Five Point”) today announced that Jeff Eaton has joined the firm as a Partner, bringing decades of experience in private capital advisory, energy and infrastructure investing. Jeff will play a key role in shaping firm strategy and enhancing client solutions, further strengthening Five Point’s position as a leader in the energy infrastructure sector.

Jeff joins Five Point after a distinguished career at Eaton Partners, where he was instrumental in growing the firm into one of the most respected private capital advisory and fund placement platforms in the industry.

“We are excited to welcome Jeff to Five Point,” said David Capobianco, CEO and Managing Partner at Five Point. “His leadership, industry relationships, and strategic insight will be invaluable as we continue to expand our platform and provide best-in-class investment opportunities to our partners. We’ve known and worked with Jeff for over a decade, and we are excited to be adding him to our team.”

For nearly two decades, Jeff advised top-tier private equity and infrastructure firms, helping to drive capital formation and long-term partnerships with institutional investors. In addition to leading and managing Eaton Partners, Jeff built Eaton’s Real Assets business into an industry leader. After helping to lead the sale of Eaton Partners to Stifel Financial in 2016, Jeff continued in a leadership role until 2023, before transitioning into a position as a Senior Advisor to Stifel. Prior to Eaton Partners, Jeff held key roles at Constellation Energy, where he was focused on investments in the midstream energy infrastructure sector.

Jeff expressed his enthusiasm for joining the firm, stating, “I have always admired the Five Point team’s vision, expertise, and ability to drive transformational investments in the critical infrastructure sector. They have built an exceptional platform, and I am eager to contribute to their continued success as a leader in infrastructure investing.”

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Five Point Infrastructure has committed as much as $1 billion to PowerBridge, a recently formed developer of data-center locations in the Permian Basin, as the private-equity firm seeks to attract technology companies to a sparsely populated region best known for producing oil and gas from shale rock.

PowerBridge plans to build locations suitable for the installation of data centers by tech companies and other users, providing them with access to power supplies and broadband communications networks as well as water for cooling, said David Capobianco, Five Point’s chief executive and managing partner. The Houston-based firm recently changed its name from Five Point Energy.

PowerBridge will build its data-center parks in locations controlled by property manager LandBridge, another
Five Point-backed company, as well as on other sites, Capobianco said. Publicly traded LandBridge owns more than 270,000 acres, equivalent to around 422 square miles, mostly across the Delaware Basin, a subregion of the Permian that includes parts of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico.

The land manager and PowerBridge are both part of an “ecosystem” for data-center and other infrastructure development that Five Point is looking to create in the over 75,000 square-mile Permian Basin, while also serving local oil-and-gas producers, Capobianco said. Roughly a quarter of the state of Texas lies within the Permian Basin, but the region houses just 4% of the state’s population, according to a regional oil industry group.

Other Five Point portfolio companies involved in the effort include Northwind Midstream, an operator of gas-treating and carbon-storage systems, and water-management company WaterBridge, whose pipelines handle more than 100 million gallons of water produced daily from Permian oil wells. PowerBridge plans to desalinate that water and make it accessible to cool data-center equipment, Capobianco said. “As we approached the opportunity to enable the build-out of data centers on our surface a couple of years ago, what we found was that water is a critical input to the process,” he said. “In some cases, you can save 10% to 30% of the power by utilizing water in a cooling capacity.”

PowerBridge is led by Alex Hernandez as CEO. He previously had the same role at power company Talen Energy and its subsidiary Cumulus Digital, which developed a 1,200-acre data center campus for Amazon’s cloud-computing business in Berwick, Pa., that is directly connected to a Talen Energy nuclear power plant.

The Cumulus project faced hurdles, however, as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in November rejected a supply agreement for Talen’s nuclear plants to provide electricity to Amazon Web Services’ data centers. The FERC ruling followed complaints by two local utilities that such behind-the-meter agreements with large customers increase their costs of maintaining the grid and ultimately lead to higher electricity rates for consumers, according to reports by trade publications. Talen earlier this year appealed the regulator’s decision, which FERC reaffirmed in April.

PowerBridge won’t likely have those difficulties as it plans to partner with power companies such as NRG Energy to build new plants instead of diverting existing output from the regional grid, Capobianco said. Because data centers can’t afford to run out of power, their co-located generators often also have excess capacity that can be fed into the grid, he said. In addition, Texas has much more favorable regulations and an open market for electricity, Capobianco added. PowerBridge’s Hernandez sits on the board of directors of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or Ercot, which operates the state’s power grid.

“You are building new, dedicated capacity to be able to provide power directly to the data centers,” Capobianco said. “It’s a completely different situation in Texas” compared with Pennsylvania, he said.

PowerBridge’s data-center locations might also use electricity from solar-power installations on LandBridge’s properties, but most new plants will be natural gas-fueled as weather-dependent renewable energy still doesn’t meet the strict requirements for uninterruptible supplies needed by data centers, he said.

“Renewables add a sustainability element into a data center, but the problem is reliability. They are a partial solution,” Capobianco said. “The five-nines reliability that you’re able to deliver from a natural gas power plant is really what’s critical to run data centers,” he added, referring to 99.999%.

Natural gas plants in the region will also take advantage of the abundant and cheap supplies produced in the Permian, Capobianco said. Natural gas produced alongside more valuable crude oil in the area usually trades at a discount compared with benchmark prices, as energy companies often struggle to unload a glut of by-product.

Despite the limited use of renewable energy, PowerBridge’s data-center locations will help the environment in various other ways, he said. They will use gas that energy companies might otherwise have to burn off on-site and will also recycle water expelled by oil and gas wells. In addition, Five Point-backed Northwind can sequester the carbon dioxide produced at the power plants, reducing emissions, Capobianco said.

Development in the Permian Basin has been going on for a while, he added, pointing to the billions of dollars the energy industry is sinking into construction at any given moment and the many workers who have moved to the region. New data-center infrastructure will continue the trend, he said.

“Executives will either live in a place like Austin and fly every day, or they’ll live in new towns and developments that will surround this kind of infrastructure,” he said. “The development of the Permian is not a new concept.”

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HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Northwind Midstream Partners LLC (“Northwind” or the “Company”) today announced that it has constructed and put into service 150 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of high-circulation amine treating capacity, two acid-gas disposal and carbon sequestration wells, over 200 miles of large-diameter pipelines and 41,750 horsepower of compression across five compressor stations. Northwind’s system construction is underpinned by long-term commitments and greater than 165,000 dedicated acres from several of the basin’s leading public and private independent oil and gas producers.

Expansion of Titan Treating Complex

Northwind is building one of the industry’s leading off-spec, NACE standard, natural gas infrastructure systems in Lea County, New Mexico, designed to manage produced natural gas with high levels of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. Northwind’s Phase 1 buildout, to be completed by mid-year 2025, is anchored by its Titan Treating Complex, where the Company recently added 100 MMcf/d of high-circulation amine treating capacity and an additional deep acid-gas injection and carbon sequestration well. The Titan Complex now operates total amine treating capacity of 150 MMcf/d and two acid gas injection wells. The completion of Phase 1 will increase total treating capacity to 200 MMcf/d and Northwind has also reached FID and customer support to further expand total treating capacity to 400 MMcf/d by 2026.

Completion of Initial Natural Gas Gathering and Compression Network

In addition to commissioning a significant expansion of its Titan Complex, Northwind also recently expanded its low and high-pressure natural gas gathering and compression network throughout Lea County. Northwind’s natural gas pipeline system consists of over 200 miles of large-diameter, NACE standard natural gas pipelines designed specifically to manage produced natural gas with high levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide. Northwind also placed into service four additional NACE standard compressor stations with the ability to handle approximately 200 MMcf/d, expandable to up to 400 MMcf/d of aggregate capacity.

Market Opportunity

David Capobianco, CEO of Five Point Energy, said: “We believe that Lea County, New Mexico is one of the premier oil producing regions in North America, and that reliable energy infrastructure is the key to unlocking its development potential. Sustainably managing off-spec hydrocarbon production through treating and sequestration has and will continue to be paramount for the industry.” Mr. Capobianco continued, “In short order, Northwind’s system has enabled its customers to unlock new development horizons and extend the boundary for known horizons, with demand for its offerings rapidly accelerating.”

Management Perspective

“Increased off-spec gas gathering, treating, and sequestration capacity is vital to the oil and gas industry’s continued success in Lea County,” said Northwind CEO Matt Spicer. “The expanded Titan facility and associated pipelines and compression commissioned by Northwind provide our upstream producer partners a safe and economical solution for off-spec gas. Our facilities and infrastructure enable producers to effectively develop the prolific benches in the Northern Delaware Basin while also meaningfully reducing emissions.”

About Northwind Midstream Partners

Established in 2022, Northwind’s strategy is to develop, own and operate off-spec gas infrastructure in the Permian Basin. Northwind operates a highly efficient, environmentally focused and exceedingly reliable midstream system, which unlocks overall customer value while mitigating customer environmental concerns. Northwind’s developed solution provides producers with (i) a superior economic alternative, (ii) significant operational enhancements, (iii) meaningful emissions reductions, and (iv) tangible ESG benefits. Learn more at www.nwmidstream.com

About Five Point Energy

Five Point Energy is a leading private equity firm focused on building world-class businesses within the environmental water management and sustainable infrastructure sectors. The firm was founded by industry veterans who have had successful careers investing in, building and running midstream companies. Five Point’s strategy is to buy and build assets, create companies, and grow them into sustainable enterprises with experienced management teams and industry-leading E&P partners. Based in Houston, Five Point targets equity investments up to $1 billion and has ~$8 billion of assets under management across multiple investment funds. Learn more at www.fivepointenergy.com.

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David Capobianco, chief executive officer of and managing partner at Five Point Energy, summed up the theme of the Permian Basin Water in Energy Conference: Produced water will not be seen as a waste but an asset. The question is how to get there.

Opening the second and final day of the conference, Capobianco offered his vision of water management as it becomes more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Not only has the Permian Basin seen development of water infrastructure, but Five Point’s customers have begun building sustainable infrastructure to recycle and reuse produced water.

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