History

Boots & Coots

Boots & Coots offers the industry the world’s most experienced well control company.

Most of our personnel trained and worked under well control pioneers Red Adair, Boots Hansen and Coots Matthews. Boots & Coots has carried on the tradition as the premier well control and emergency response company in the world.

The experience of Boots & Coots personnel is unmatched in the industry. In response to our industry's changing needs, today we offer the most complete range of pressure control services available.

The timeline below offers a glimpse into how deep the roots of Boots & Coots extend within the oil and gas industry, beginning with the father of modern well control techniques Myron Kinley, to Red Adair, Boots Hansen, and Coots Matthews, and finally Halliburton.

1913 First oil well put out with explosives by Myron Kinley and his father.
1923 Myron Kinley starts the M.M. Kinley Company.
1946 Paul "Red" Adair joins the M.M. Kinley Company. In the years that follow, Asger "Boots" Hansen and Edward Owen "Coots" Matthews also begin their careers under Kinley.
1959 Red Adair forms the Red Adair Company. Boots Hansen and Coots Matthews eventually join Adair.
1961 Adair and his crew control the "Devil's Cigarette Lighter" in Gassi Touil, Algeria, landing Adair on the cover of Life and elevating him to "hero" status.
1968 "Hellfighters", starring John Wayne, is released in the United States. Adair acts as technical advisor to the film and becomes a lifelong friend of John Wayne.
1978 Boots Hansen and Coots Matthews leave the Adair Company to form Boots & Coots.
1991 Iraqi soldiers ignite more than 700 oil wells as they retreat in defeat at the close of the Persian Gulf War. Over 30% of the fires are controlled by specialists from the Red Adair Company (which later became International Well Control [IWC]) and Boots & Coots.
1994 Adair retires and sells his company to Global Industries. The senior management of the Red Adair Company leaves Global Industries and forms International Well Control.
1995 IWC and Halliburton Energy Services join forces to create the WellCall Alliance.
1997 International Well Control acquires Boots & Coots, reuniting the world's most experienced well control specialists and fire fighters.
2001 Boots & Coots begins offering prevention services.
2006 Boots & Coots enters the snubbing/hydraulic workover business with its purchase of Hydraulic Well Control from Oil States International.
2007 Boots & Coots purchases StassCo. with snubbing/hydraulic workover operations in the Rockies' Cheynne basin, opens a North Texas location and enters the pressure control rental tool business.
2009 Boots & Coots purchases John Wright Company.
2010 Boots & Coots merges with Halliburton.