George P. Mitchell
| George P. Mitchell | |
|---|---|
George P. Mitchell in 2011
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| Born |
George Phydias Mitchell May 21, 1919 Galveston, Texas, USA |
| Died | July 26, 2013 (aged 94) Tremont House, Galveston, Texas |
| Residence | Galveston, Texas |
| Nationality | Greek American |
| Citizenship | USA |
| Alma mater | Texas A&M University |
| Occupation | Founder of Mitchell Energy & Development Corp.; philanthropist |
| Years active | 1950s–1990s |
| Known for | Hydraulic fracturing pioneer, developer of The Woodlands, Galveston restoration, philanthropic support of sustainability |
| Home town | Galveston, Texas |
| Net worth | $2 billion (2013) |
| Spouse(s) | Cynthia Woods Mitchell |
| Website | Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation |
George Phydias Mitchell (May 21, 1919 – July 26, 2013) was an American businessman, real estate developer and philanthropist from Texas credited with pioneering the economic extraction of shale gas.
According to The Economist, "few businesspeople have done as much to change the world as George Mitchell."
Mitchell was born to Greek immigrant parents in the port city of Galveston, Texas in 1919. His father, Savvas Paraskevopoulos, was from the village of Nestani in Arcadia, tended goats before immigrating to the United States in 1901, arriving at Ellis Island at the age of 20. He worked for railroads, and gradually moved west. When a paymaster got tired of writing his long name and threatened to fire him, Mr. Paraskevopoulos took the paymaster’s name, Mike Mitchell. Mike Mitchell settled in Galveston, where he ran a succession of shoe-shining and pressing shops. When he saw the picture of a beautiful woman in a local Greek newspaper, he headed for Florida, where she had settled, according to family lore. He persuaded her to abandon her fiancé and marry him. They lived above the shoeshine shop.
In 1940, Mitchell earned a degree in petroleum engineering with an emphasis in geology from Texas A&M University. He graduated as the valedictorian in his class and was also the captain of the men's tennis team.
He started an independent oil and gas company, Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. and built it into a Fortune 500 company. He participated in the development of about 10,000 wells, including more than 1000 wildcat wells.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the company experimented with application of different techniques of hydraulic fracturing of the Barnett Shale of Texas, eventually finding the right technique to economically extract the natural gas in the formation. The new approach has been widely adopted by the gas industry and spawned a new gas boom in North America. The Potential Gas Committee estimates that U.S. recoverable reserves will last 118 years at current production levels. but production is expected to more than triple by 2020. Extracting natural gas from shale rock is rapidly spreading to countries outside the United States. Some consider his innovation important in the context of energy security, making the United States less dependent on foreign sources of energy. Because of the technological progress in industry fracking, George Mitchell is now known as the “pioneer of shale.” For this reason, it is proposed that the date of his birth -21 May 1919 – will be considered as the “Shale Day”. Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. was later acquired by Devon Energy.
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