Antero Resources (NYSE: AR) won’t make you rich quick. The busiest Marcellus and Utica gas driller recently went public in the year’s biggest energy sector IPO, and despite pricing its offering above the proposed range, still enjoyed an 18 percent first-day pop.

Six weeks later, the stock has been marked up 25 percent from the IPO price, to levels that fully discount the exceptionally rapid growth the company is set to deliver over the next couple of years.

Still, in the words of one analyst whose opinion and upside price target are fairly representative of Wall Street’s faith in Antero, this is a “must-own.”

It’s a must own because Antero appears to have secured the sweetest of the liquids-rich sweet spots in both the Marcellus and the Utica, which look more and more like the two highest-return domestic shale plays.

Source: company presentation

Antero’s  329,000 net Marcellus acres, located mostly in northwest West Virginia, are driving Appalachian production that has more tripled annually since 2010 and boosted the company’s output 128 percent year-over-year in the most recent quarter.

Next year should see another huge growth spurt, because Antero is the region’s most active driller with 15 rigs exploiting the Marcellus and 4 more in the Utica. It expects to spud 197 wells in 2014, up from 161 this year.

Because Antero’s West Virginia’s leases are generally contiguous and geologically uniform, the company had  been able to drill 7,000 foot laterals, about 50 percent longer than its leading competitors. Longer laterals, in turn, have boosted production while keeping costs down.

In fact, Antero is the industry’s lowest cost producer with all-in finding and development costs of just $1.03 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) of natural gas, by one estimate as much as 27 percent below that of runner-up Cabot Oil & Gas (NYSE: COG). Its Marcellus wells are expected to generate rates of return ranging from 93 percent annually in the most liquid-rich locations to 29 percent for those in the dry gas window.

Utica’s looking even more bountiful, with estimated annual rates of return ranging from 220 percent on the most liquids-rich locations to 40 percent for dry gas. And the most lucrative locations comprise some 30 percent of Antero’s drilling inventory in core Utica, where it has leased 104,000 net acres. The company has drilled seven of the eight most productive Utica wells.

At 22 times trailing EBITDA in enterprise value, Antero certainly isn’t cheap. But relative to its growth potential and future profit potential, it still may not be getting full credit for its Utica portfolio, much less the Utica dry gas window beneath its Marcellus leases.

Source: company presentation

Antero’s management team is widely respected in an industry and has a decade long record of building shareholder value, including the sale of Antero’s prior incarnation to XTO energy after pioneering horizontal completions in the Barnett and Woodford shale. Management holds significant stakes in the company, aligning its interest closely with shareholders, and Antero’s private-equity backers continue to own most of the float after the $1.6 billion offering.

Because Antero has aggressively built out its own midstream infrastructure, it’s less dependent on third-party suppliers than its rivals, and should thus be less constrained by infrastructure delays as it grows. Further, it appears poised to cash in on high midstream valuations by converting its gathering and processing assets into an MLP that could be offered to the public, providing another source of cheap capital.

To sum up, Antero is an Appalachian pure-play and lowest-domestic-cost producer with an outstanding growth profile, unmatched position in the sweet spots of the Marcellus and the Utica and top-notch management. It’s expensive, sure, but the best assets often are. We’re adding Antero to our Growth Portfolio. Buy AR below $62.