Our Executive Summary

TerraQuest Corporation is a privately held, fully integrated energy exploration and production company, exploiting opportunities associated with renewable energy and oil and gas resources.  The Company has been excelling in these endeavors for more than 40 years.

Michael and Steven Root, the Company’s CEO and COO, respectively, along with its team of talented employees, have the experience and expertise to undertake and support activities focused on wind and solar projects; as well as, conventional (vertical) and unconventional (horizontal) oil and gas projects.

Innovating new technologies and commercially exploiting those technologies has been the hallmark of Michael and Steve.   Collectively, they have been granted 44 U.S. Patents and more than 50 foreign Patents (as of September 2022) dealing with location-based and location-aware content delivered to mobile devices of all types, weather and climate metrics, and the design and use of various types of wearable computing devices in alerting services.  Their patenting process continues today as they generate and protect novel technologies.

Our History

Michael Root, a seasoned Petroleum Geologist, formed TerraQuest Corporation in 1982 as a vehicle to investigate and capitalize on the opportunity of producing gas hydrates in the Bering Sea of Alaska.  Having spent four summers working on the North Slope of Alaska at Prudhoe Bay during the Trans-Alaska pipeline years, he was able to experience firsthand the logistical requirements needed for large-scale operations.  Unfortunately, that opportunity stalled as a result of the excessive costs associated with the remoteness of Alaska and the inadequate completion technologies existing at that time.  Nonetheless, this opportunity still exists today as gas hydrates have generated renewed interest in the energy industry, as the resource has the potential to provide virtually unlimited supplies of natural gas.

Early in 1985, Mr. Root pivoted the direction of TerraQuest to that of a fully integrated, oil and gas exploration and production company to take advantage of his education and his years of working with major and independent oil companies.

The Company initially generated conventional (vertical) drilling prospects in the basins of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, but concentrated the Company’s efforts on Ordovician reservoirs (Simpson sandstones) in central and eastern counties of Oklahoma.  Mr. Root and TerraQuest generated and sold numerous drilling deals to other operators, which resulted in a significant percentage being completed as successful producers. 

Mr. Root was an innovator of several successful oil and gas plays in Oklahoma during the late 1990s, ahead of the general adoption of the underlying geologic concepts by industry participants.   These included a methodology for identifying bypassed natural gas pay in shallow, Virgilian-aged sandstones in previously drilled wells and a horizontal drilling program in the Lower Mississippian-aged carbonates of north-central Oklahoma.

The Virgil gas play resulted in many very economic gas producers, as TerraQuest was able to re-enter the previously drilled wellbores of abandoned oil and gas producers or dry holes to complete the Virgil sandstones at a very shallow depth.  With its horizontal Mississippian oil play, TerraQuest concentrated its focus in Logan and adjacent counties of Oklahoma, as a regional study indicated that the best reservoir rocks with the greatest amount of natural fracturing occurred just east of the Nemaha Ridge.  The oil and gas industry ultimately expanded the play beyond Logan County and the play eventually encompassed more than 40,000 square miles in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Today, TerraQuest is controlled by twin brothers, Michael and Steven Root.  Michael serves as the Company’s President and CEO, and Steve serves as the Company’s Executive Vice President and COO.  Steve is an experienced Meteorologist and a recognized expert in the field of weather and climate datasets.

The Root brothers were also the principals of WeatherBank, Inc. until WeatherBank was sold to a competitor in January 2015. WeatherBank was a completely integrated, full-service, meteorological consulting company with nearly 45 years of experience in the weather services industry.  WeatherBank provided weather data, products, and custom programming solutions to many Fortune 500 Companies, which included Walmart, Sears, Pacific Gas & Electric, PepsiCo, Advance Auto Parts, Lowe’s, Clorox, General Electric, Continental Airlines, and many U.S. government agencies. WeatherBank’s products and services allowed its clients to correctly time and place energy loads, marketing campaigns, product inventories, and create greater operating efficiencies by understanding the impacts that weather and climate have on their businesses.  WeatherBank was also the first private weather services provider to forecast the onsite weather for the events at the Winter Olympic Games (2002, Salt Lake City, Utah).

The Root brothers also have a documented track record for creating new technologies.  Much of this work deals with location-based and location-aware content (both weather and non-weather related) delivered to mobile devices of all types, the use of location-based content, as well as the design and use of various types of wearable computing devices in alerting services.   This effort started in the late 1990s and continues today.  As of October 2024, this work has resulted in the grant of 44 U.S. Patents and more than 30 foreign Patents to Michael and Steven Root.

Today, the Company’s focus is on upstream renewable energy projects targeting areas of exceptional wind and solar energy resources.  Since the early 2000s, the Company has identified several dozen wind and solar projects and two have been acquired by industry leaders.  These include the 200 Mw (Megawatt) Goodwell Wind Farm in Texas County, Oklahoma, completed in 2015 and operated by Enel Green Power, NA; and the 522 Mw Sagamore Wind Farm in Roosevelt County, New Mexico, which commenced operations in December 2020.   The Sagamore project is owned and operated by Xcel Energy.