Bill Barrett Corporation is an energy company based in Denver, Colorado

Denver, Colorado

The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

. Its core business is natural gas

Natural gas

Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

 and oil exploration

Oil exploration

Hydrocarbon exploration is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for hydrocarbon deposits beneath the Earth's surface, such as oil and natural gas...

 and development in the Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

 region of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

William J. "Bill" Barrett founded the company in January 2002 after his previous company, Barrett Resources, was acquired by the Williams Companies

Williams Companies

The Williams Companies, Inc. is an energy company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its core business is natural gas exploration, production, processing, and transportation, with additional petroleum and electricity generation assets...

 in August 2001. Bill Barrett Corporation went public in December 2004. Barrett stepped down as chairman and CEO in 2006, and was succeeded by his son Fredrick J. Barrett.

One company project that has drawn press coverage and public debate is the development of natural gas reserves in the West Tavaputs Plateau, in and around Nine Mile Canyon

Nine Mile Canyon

Nine Mile Canyon is a canyon, approximately long, located in the counties of Carbon and Duchesne in eastern Utah, in the Western United States. Promoted as "the world’s longest art gallery," the canyon is known for its extensive rock art, most of it created by the Fremont culture and the Ute people...

, in Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

's Uinta Basin. This find won the trade publication Oil and Gas Investors 2005 Excellence Award for Best Discovery.