Southwestern Energy Company*

Though Southwestern Energy Co. moved its headquarters to Houston in 2001, it has an important role in Arkansas’ past and future.

Southwestern Energy began as a local gas distribution company in Fayetteville in 1929 and grew into what is today Arkansas Western Gas Co. Though it began a natural gas drilling program in the state in 1943, an emerging gas play is quickly becoming the core of the firm’s business plan.

The Fayetteville Shale Play in north-central Arkansas, one of the largest emerging natural gas reserves in the country, has three Southwestern Energy companies – Seeco Inc., DeSoto Drilling Co. and DeSoto Gathering Co. – heavily invested in the state for decades to come. Because the gas play is emerging, the work force and infrastructure are lacking. Southwestern Energy stepped in and pledged $200,000 to establish the petroleum technology program at the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton. The company also gives to the Fayetteville Shale Scholarship Fund, which helps prepare students for jobs in the developing industry. Southwestern Energy gave $250,000 to Junior Achievement of Arkansas, the nonprofit’s largest-ever donation, to establish an energy curriculum for high school students in the Fayetteville Shale area. The company announced last spring a $250,000 commitment to create the Damascus Bobwhite Quail Habitat Project with several state environmental and habitat agencies to revive the declining species.

Arkansas Western Gas Co., which Southwestern Energy is selling to SourceGas LLC of Lakewood, Colo., annually donates $25,000 to its “Hearts Warming Homes” program, which gives money to families in need to heat their homes each winter. Though a formal corporate giving program was established just 18 months ago, Southwestern Energy Co. said it has already given more than $1 million and allocated an additional $1 million for in-kind services.