Still hungry after 40 years, Frank Lodzinski is back in the game, looking to top his $1 billion sale of GeoResources to Halcón Resources Corp. in 2012. Suggesting that retiring to sit on another company's board is too passive, he says, “We're operators; I don't know what I'd do if I weren't doing this”—this, meaning building and selling an E&P. “I think I've still got some horsepower left.”

That horsepower is being harnessed within his latest startup, Oak Valley Resources LLC, now a little over a year in. Oak Valley launched with an initial funding of $215 million from a host of investors including private equity and high-net-worth individuals, plus $60 million of contributed properties. More capital is available where that came from, he says, and he just wanted to get enough to get the drillbit turning.

“I'm not concerned our current level of dry powder (about $400 million) is going to limit our growth,” he says.

Along with known private-equity names such as EnCap Investments and Wells Fargo, Oak Valley's capital sources include The Vlasic Group—yes, pickles, although the Vlasic family sold the food company in 1978. In fact, pickles made Lodzinski into the successful oil and gas man he is today. “When we got started early on, we only had one investor—the Vlasics. Period. I will be with them as long as they will have me.”

Lodzinski met the Vlasic family in the 1980s when he acquired distressed oil and gas partnerships in which the Vlasics were limited partners. “I returned their investment money and squared things away. Now they've been with me for 26 consecutive years.” Over the course of those years, he has built and successfully exited Hampton Resources, Texoil, AROC (of which he was appointed CEO to restructure, build assets and liquidate), and Southern Bay, predecessor to GeoResources.

Oak Valley launched with a portfolio that included contributed properties from investors scattered across Texas, Oklahoma and northern Louisiana. “I like to say we're diversified,” he says. The mission of these properties, mostly gas, is to kick off cash flow to fund the company's general expenses. “We hate starting from zero,” he explains. “These aren't sexy properties, but they are cash flow.”

What goes around comes around. When Lodzinski's previous iteration, GeoResources, sold to Halcón, the portfolio included 51,000 gross Eagle Ford shale acres (15,000 net) in Gonzalez and Fayette counties in South Texas. Alas, Halcón was forced to divest of this portion of the acquisition due to a noncompete agreement with BHP Billiton. And to whom should the Eagle Ford spoils go? Lodzinski, of course.

“We originated the play. We know more about this acreage than anybody.”

The acreage is in the lesser-risked northeastern arm of the Eagle Ford. Oak Valley teamed with private-equity firm Parallel Resource Partners, which has a 70% nonoperated interest, to buy the package last fall with some 3,300 barrels of oil equivalent daily production. With two rigs running, the company is now drilling its seventh Eagle Ford well and one Austin Chalk well. “This is currently our primary growth area,” Lodzinski says.

He also likes the growth prospect of an emerging Buda play in Milam and Burleson counties in East Texas. Yet, with bigger targets in mind, Oak Valley opened an office in Denver recently, with its eyes on the Bakken, a core position of GeoResources and one his team knows well, or an emerging Rockies play.

Oak Valley's strength, he says, is its technical and operating team, which is vital for a small company in the resource-play age. “These fine folks have been with me for 10 to 25 years, and now we're putting more financial and human resources into our G&G and engineering.”

Lodzinski wants to take Oak Valley public by the end of 2014, and likely by reverse merger as he did when his then-Southern Bay bought GeoResources, his third foray into the public realm. “We can compete effectively in the public arena,” he says. “We have more financial flexibility.” Plus, being public provides an exit option for his investment partners. Alternately, while not ruling it out, he believes Oak Valley would need to score another sizeable acquisition before it would have the scale to IPO.

Ultimately, Lodzinski re-upped with Oak Valley because he was nominated to lead—by his private- and personal-equity partners and by his team. “They wanted me to do it again. Without my investors, and the operational and administrative excellence of my underlying staff, I would never have been able to achieve what we've achieved. I owe them. Sounds corny, but I do.”