Worked for Aubrey McClendon. He's the guy who pioneered shale drilling.
I didn't claim George Mitchell was the biggest producer. He's the one the figured out how to get the Barnett Shale to be productive.
To call anyone else "the guy who pioneered shale drilling" is false. Aubrey may have invested the most after others' first figured it out. But if you want to claim one guy as "the pioneer", it is George Mitchell.
Hydraulic fracturing has been around since roughly 1950. But it was Mitchell, drilling in the Barnett Shale near Dallas and Fort Worth, who figured out that fracking could work to break natural gas free from the impermeable shale — this ultimately set in motion the boom in shale drilling that has spread across the country, and soon, the world.
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Down in Texas, George Mitchell and his Mitchell Energy & Development had combined horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing to blast open impermeable (or “tight”) rock. This is the innovation that made all the difference.
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George Mitchell, the wildcatter who figured out how to squeeze natural gas out of the Barnett Shale, told Forbes that the government should more closely regulate fracking. Mitchell, who combined hydraulic fracturing with directional drilling to make shale production profitable, called for “very strict controls” from the Department of Energy. Mitchell sold his company, Mitchell Energy & Development, to Devon Energy, which is now one of the largest natural gas producers in the country.
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Mitchell, Hamm, McClendon and others were all some of the the pioneers in this field who believed in the technology and risked their fortunes investing heavily in it. But if you want to take the list down to one, "the guy", then it is Mitchell. All others followed what he proved.