When Autry Stephens struck out on his own in 1996 to pursue oil riches, he named his one-rig outfit Big Dog Drilling Co.

Twenty years on, the moniker seems prophetic. Stephens, 80, owns the largest closely held oil producer in Texas by production volume, Endeavor Energy Resources LP. The Midland-based firm has suitors including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. weighing bids that could value the company at $15 billion, including about $1 billion of debt.

A sale of that magnitude would rank among the 10-biggest deals for a private energy company and make Stephens one the world’s richest people. He and his family own all of Endeavor, which controls drilling rights on 329,000 net acres in the Midland Basin, a subsection of the Permian Basin of West Texas.

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