Some E&P veterans lament the days of wildcatting are long gone. In the offices of Southwestern Energy Co., wildcatting remains a way of doing business that has brought the company up from the depths of lawsuit despair to the pioneer soil of the new Fayetteville Shale play that could someday rival the Barnett. At the helm of this operation is Harold Korell. As chairman, chief executive and president, Korell has maintained his strategy of finding instead of acquiring assets and returning a $1.30 for every dollar invested, even in the face of near-bankruptcy. This determination was fostered at the Colorado School of Mines, where Korell received an engineering degree and then began his career with Mobil Oil Corp., Tenneco Oil Co., McCormick Resources and American Exploration Co. Korell joined Southwestern in 1997 while it was based in Arkansas and had a steady utility business but foundering E&P unit. The E&P business was gaining momentum when, in June 2000, the company lost a lawsuit representing half of its total market cap. Nonetheless, the company survived the near-death experience and since that time, Korell has transformed Southwestern into a formidable upstream, midcap producer. Now, the company is perched upon what could be the next big U.S. gas play-and in its own former backyard of north-central Arkansas. Analysts laud the Fayetteville Shale's potential and Southwestern's competitors big and small are fighting to get a piece of the action where Southwestern sits on some 800,000 acres and is not looking now to taking a partner on any of its leases. The company has even become its own supplier of drilling rigs in the play, virtually eliminating one of its biggest frustrations. Oil and Gas Investor recently sat down with Korell to discuss Southwestern's strategy of organic growth, where the money is really made in the energy business, and why sticking with it is the greatest lesson he has learned. For more on this, see the December issue of Oil and Gas Investor. For a subscription, call 713-993-9320,ext. 126.

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