Upside of Oil and Gas Investing (Second Edition): How the New Model Works and Why It Puts the Traditional Model to Shame

What to Know Before You Put Money in the Ground

Most oil and gas deals are built to pay the promoter first. Jay Young has spent his career on the investment side of the business, and he has watched investors sign onto structures that gave them almost no way to recover their capital.

This second edition of The Upside of Oil and Gas Investing explains how the deals are put together and what a fair one looks like. Young walks through the model his company uses: assemble acreage where oil has already been found, drill to prove the concept, and divest to a larger buyer while the wells are at their most productive.

Inside, readers will find:

• How a traditional sponsored deal is structured, and where the money goes first
• The four Rs applied to every project: returns, rate, running room, and repeatability
• How 1031 exchange proceeds may be repositioned into qualifying oil and gas interests
• The J-Unit approach to proving the value of acreage before an exit
• Which tax provisions apply to direct participation, updated for 2025 legislation

The questions worth asking an operator before committing capital Written for accredited investors and property owners weighing an energy allocation.