MIDLAND, Texas — It’s business as usual for Aubrey McClendon’s American Energy Partners LP (AEP).

The Oklahoma City-based company and its various affiliates plan to forge ahead despite the current price of crude oil and might even make some acquisitions along the way, Jeffrey Fisher, COO of AEP, said at Hart Energy’s Executive Oil Conference on Nov. 11.

“We are very focused on efficiencies and where we can gather that around our current positions whether it is acquisitions, joint ventures or other opportunities,” he said.

As for the industry, Fisher said he thinks the drop in crude prices creates several opportunities to generate a little bit of breathing room in activity.

“The American producer is very resilient,” he said. “Certainly a drop in price wasn’t particularly welcomed, but we have all seen our ability to reinvent these plays and continue to drive the cost down. And that’s what we’re focused on.”

Established in April 2013, AEP and its affiliates now include five E&P companies with assets in some of the best plays in the U.S. The companies currently control about 630,000 net acres with production of 82,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) in the Utica, Marcellus, Woodford and Permian Basin.

To date, AEP has raised some $14 billion in institutional capital with The Energy & Minerals Group as its lead investor. Additional equity has been provided by First Reserve Corp., AEP’s management team and others.

Fisher, who joined AEP in November 2013 from Chesapeake Corp. (NYSE: CHK), where he had worked with McClendon for about a decade, said an integral part of the overall strategy is building play-specific businesses with the potential for growth.

“Certainly we’ve got different investors, different board of directors in each of those. And as to their ultimate growth and outcome, certainly IPO is an option,” he said. “We’ve wanted to distinctively build these out with that in mind, but it’s not the only option.”

AEP’s Permian Basin affiliate, American Energy-Permian Basin LLC (AEPB), might be the first to go to public markets.

The Permian affiliate announced in October that it planned to file for an IPO within the next year. The eventual IPO will depend on market conditions, according to the company.

The announcement came after the company had boosted its leasehold position from the original 63,000 net acres it bought from Enduring Resources LLC in July for $2.5 billion.

AEPB said it will hold 90,000 net acres in the Wolfcamp Shale primarily in Reagan County, Texas, after the closing of several acquisitions from multiple undisclosed parties for $726 million. The company expects to have proved reserves of about 158 MMboe following closing.

Fisher said AEPB is currently running five horizontal rigs in the Permian with the opportunity to increase to 10 or more by 2015—that is unless the price of crude oil declines further.

“We will keep our eye on prices and liquidity as we go into next year,” he said. “We certainly are well-funded and feel comfortable that we’ve got good wells to drill even at $80 oil. If prices go down further, then that would be something we would have to look at.”

As for more acquisitions, Fisher said the company is continuing to look for additional bolt-ons or asset trades.

“We have picked up some acreage that doesn’t play directly into our Reagan County focus,” he said. “We would be interested in swaps and coring up to build efficiencies in the operation.”

For its Marcellus and Utica entities, he said a merger might be on the horizon.

American Energy-Utica LLC (AEU) has acquired, or has agreements to acquire, about 280,000 net acres in the southern Utica Shale in Ohio. Meanwhile, American Energy-Marcellus (AEM) has about 83,000 net acres in West Virginia.

Fisher said there are two main reasons for the eventual combination of the companies. First of all, he cites synergies in terms of field operations and technical staff. Secondly, the plays are somewhat overlapping each other.

“As you see the Utica extending east into West Virginia and the Marcellus extending westward into Ohio, those business are likely to be combined,” he said.

AEP is also continuing to look at other opportunities to grow across the U.S., he said.

“We certainly have ideas for other affiliate companies, and we’ll work with our capital partners to do what makes sense there,” he said.