'Father' of fracking George Mitchell recalled as 'giant' by energy industry leaders

F. Carter Smith/Bloomberg

In this file photo, George Mitchell receives the inaugural IHS CERA Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 CERAWEEK energy conference in Houston. Mitchell died Friday at age 94.

Giant. Genius. Gentleman.

Those are some of the words I heard time and again as I gathered reaction Friday to the passing of Houston energy industry icon George Mitchell.

National Oilwell Varco (NYSE: NOV) CEO Pete Miller was one of the first to respond, and he quickly noted the Galveston, Texas, native?s impact on the energy industry. To many in the industry, he was known as the "father" of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the method used to extract oil and gas from shale rock formations.

?He was a true giant of the oil business. The shale revolution we are witnessing today is really a result of his efforts and foresight,? Miller said. ?He was a leader, an innovator and a wonderful gentleman.?

Allan Weatherford, president and CEO of Liberty Pipeline Services LLC in Spring, Texas, said Mitchell was a visionary who saw things in the 1960s that no one else did.

?He was definitely an iconic figure,? he said.

Mitchell would?ve turned 95 in August. He studied petroleum engineering and geology at Texas A&M University in College Station and started consulting in the oil business back in the late 1940s. In 1947, George and his brother, Johnny, made what was the first of many deals in the fast-growing oil business by investing in their first exploration venture with a rather emphatic name: Oil Drilling Inc.

Mitchell stepped back from the limelight in recent years. But he made news in December when he called for tight regulations on the technology that he pioneered, which has fueled a renaissance in the energy space.

He told America Public Media?s Marketplace that, as he looked back on his long career in oil and gas, he continued to support the use of fossil fuels. But he also said the folks who run independent operations tend to be ?wild,? and the Department of Energy must ?get tough? with them.

Deon Daugherty covers energy and law for the Houston Business Journal. Read the top Texas energy news in our free weekly newsletter, Energy Inc. Subscribe to the Energy Inc. newsletter. For her breaking stories, follow her on Twitter.

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