James Terracio is a Principal of Terravest LLC and a Managing Director of Wellbore Capital LLC.
Terravest LLC was formed to provide reserves consulting services to the upstream and midstream sectors of the energy industry as well as financial institutions, including commercial and investment banks. He has performed numerous reserves evaluations for both conventional and stretch reserve based lending, potential acquisition or sale of assets, and project development plans.
Wellbore Capital LLC was formed in August of 2006 with a partner in Dallas, Texas for the purpose of investing institutional funds in oil and gas development and exploratory drilling programs. The partners raised $200 million in capital to be invested as an industry partner with experienced operators in domestic energy projects. He is directly involved with business development, evaluation of projects and partners, negotiation of contracts and participation agreements and the daily management of the company.
Prior to forming Wellbore Capital LLC, he was a Senior Vice President and the General Manager of DeGolyer and MacNaughton’s Houston office and served on the firms board of Directors. A Division manager, he conducted and supervised interdisciplinary geologic and engineering studies and performed economic analysis for both onshore and offshore properties. He has conducted and supervised studies of both domestic and international oil and gas fields while working at D & M from 1981 to August of 2006. He has prepared studies of unconventional reservoirs throughout the United States, such as the shale plays of the Appalachian, Arkoma, Fort Worth and Michigan basins. He has also evaluated the performance and recovery of numerous coal bed methane projects in the Appalachian, Black Warrior, Powder River and San Juan basins. His expertise in evaluating domestic properties for sale or purchase includes electronic data acquisition, reserves estimation, oil and gas production forecasting, and economic evaluation. He has served as an expert witness on numerous occasions in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. He is also an expert on SEC compliance issues and has taught several classes on SEC compliance.
In addition to evaluating more than 20 oil fields offshore Angola, he has been involved in field studies in Barbados, Italy, Indonesia, and the North Sea. In preparing gas reserves certificates for several large Indonesian fields, his activities have ranged from gas well deliverability analysis, material‑balance analysis, and PVT and fluid analysis to reserves estimation and gas production forecasting.
Terracio has served as project manager and reservoir engineer for large domestic divestment packages. This work involved the estimation of reserves, production projections, and economic analyses of hundreds of properties in various fields and basins throughout the U.S. The D&M evaluations were provided in the data room for these divestment projects and were used by prospective purchasers to make their bids and to finance the purchase of the properties.
He has performed numerous evaluations for financial institutions that have invested capital in the energy sector through the acquisition of assets or companies, direct working interest in drilling programs and prospects, private equity, volumetric production payments and project financing.
Terracio went to work for Phillips Petroleum after college in their Borger, London and Oklahoma City offices in various capacities. In 1980 he joined Cabot Corporation’s Gas Marketing Division in Charleston, W.V., Terracio was responsible for all engineering work on 1,200 gas wells, a gathering system, transmission system, and a gas utility company. He also worked in the firm’s Gas Process and Pipeline Division, handling property evaluations, reserves and deliverability studies on all new wells connected to Cabot’s pipeline systems in seven states, and other energy‑related special projects.
He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1977 with a B.S. degree in chemical engineering with a petroleum engineering specialty. Terracio, a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, is a registered professional engineer in Texas.