Believe it or not, Yelich announced to a crowd of A&D folk at a recent Society of Petroleum Engineers event that the 63-year-old company that defined the acquire-and-exploit model and has lived by it for the past three decades would instead turn its attention—and capital—to exploration. Exhibit No. 1: Alpine High.

“We’ve had a shift in strategic direction that we started implementing a couple of years ago,” Yelich said. “We built the business through a very successful acquire-and-exploit strategy; now, we’re moving away from that to more of a grassroots, organic strategy focused on North America unconventional growth.”

But who knew Alpine High signaled the end of the Apache acquisition era? That’s not just a shift; that’s a complete reversal of strategy.

The Houston-based producer made its reputation through the late 1980s and 1990s buying cast-off assets from majors and turning them into gems. From Occidental Petroleum, Amoco, BP, Texaco and others, Apache built its portfolio in the Lower 48 and globally with assets for which others simply didn’t see a future.

Historically, Apache had taken a contrarian approach to acquisitions, patiently waiting through frothy buy cycles and pouncing when others hesitated to act. Take the period post-2008 financial crisis. From 2010 through 2012, Apache made some $18 billion in purchases, with $7 billion of that coming from beleaguered BP following the Macondo accident and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Notably, from 2013 forward during which oil prices topped $100 per barrel, Apache’s acquisition cannons have been largely silent. Instead, it went on a divestiture spree, carving out $4 billion in sales.

So one would expect that, coming out of the Great Oil and Gas Depression, Apache would be poised to stock up on more exploitable assets in multibillion deals. Instead, and to everyone’s surprise, it announced Alpine High, a stealth leasing and evaluation project resulting in the accumulation of more than 300,000 net acres in a forgotten far West Texas patch now dubbed a world-class play. Remember, this region has long been shunned by the oil and gas community as too deep, too gassy and too structurally complex.

“Apache has a differentiated view of this area,” said Tom Sullivan, executive vice president, operations support, speaking at the same event. “We feel like we have a highly economic wet gas play with the potential for oil.”

Indeed, Apache views Alpine High as a bonanza, with 5,000 feet of producible column from five zones across its holdings. Its 3,000-location estimate is conservative, Sullivan said, as it only includes one landing zone per formation. “When you see the log, I think you will agree there are multiple landing zones within each. We have 20 years plus of drilling” based on a current six-rig program.

And rather than a one-off opportunity, Sullivan said to expect Apache to build its portfolio via exploration henceforth.

“We have a team whose duty is to look for opportunities like this that are not caught in the whirlwind of having to look after rigs. Their primary focus is to find new plays.” These new plays will be funded by cash flow kicked off Apache’s North Sea and Egypt cash-cow assets.

Sullivan revealed that the team that evaluated the overlooked Alpine High find had never before worked the Permian, “so they came in without any preconceived notions. They tore it apart, came up with some concepts, and convinced us to go out and test them. It takes a little contrarian thinking to do something like this when things are tough.”

What makes this so contrarian is not that Apache pushed the science through the down-turn, but that it pursued exploration at all through the downturn and now singularly into the future. Aside from EOG Resources, it’s hard to find an unconventionally focused E&P these days leading with the new ventures team.

Despite the revelation, Yelich didn’t tender his resignation at the SPE event, which might suggest there is still work to be done in the A&D department at Apache. Maybe there’s more “D” to come to high-grade to Permian, but my gut feeling is that while a tiger can camouflage its stripes in the high grass while it patiently stalks its prey, eventually it pounces for a big kill.

I just can’t imagine that Apache has permanently switched off the lights in the business development offices. Time—and a well-timed opportunity—will tell.

If in fact you’re still looking to grow your upstream business through A&D, be sure to join us at the A&D Strategies and Opportunities conference and workshop at the Dallas Ritz-Carlton Sept. 6-7. For more information go to HartEnergyConferences.com.