Equitable Resources, Inc. (NYSE: EQT) today announced 2008 achievements
and an initial preview of 2009. Highlights include:
-- Achieved year-end daily production sales target of 235 MMcfe; three
months ahead of schedule. -- Successfully drilled 296 horizontal wells
year-to-date. -- Completed construction of the Langley hydrocarbon
processing plant and gas compression facilities in Kentucky. The plant
has the capacity to process 170 MMcfe of natural gas per day. Combined
with the Big Sandy pipeline and Mayking corridor, completed earlier this
year, these projects provide the platform for significant sales growth
in 2009 and beyond.
With the success of Equitable's horizontal drilling program and
completion of several important infrastructure projects, the company has
a long-term natural gas sales growth potential of greater than 20% per
year. However, given current market conditions, the company is
developing a plan to reduce capital spending significantly for 2009
versus 2008. This capital spending plan is built on the premise the
company will not access capital markets through the end of 2010. Even
so, this plan anticipates annual sales growth of greater than 12%
through concentrated spending on drilling where midstream capacity has
already been built. Capital expenditures for 2008 are expected to total
approximately $1.4 billion.
Equitable Resources' Chairman and CEO, Murry Gerber, is scheduled to
present at IPAA's OGIS San Francisco Conference today at 5:15 p.m.
Eastern Time. The event will be broadcast live on Equitable's website, http://www.eqt.com,
and will be available for seven days. The slides for this presentation
will be posted to the company's website.
Equitable will report third quarter 2008 results on October 23, 2008.
There will be a conference call for analysts at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
The third quarter report will include more details on operational
achievements.
Equitable Resources is a natural gas-focused energy company, with an
emphasis on Appalachian area natural gas activities, including
production, gathering, processing, transmission, storage and
distribution. For information please visit http://www.eqt.com.
Disclosures in this press release contain forward-looking statements.
Statements that do not relate strictly to historical or current facts
are forward-looking. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing,
forward-looking statements contained in this press release specifically
include the expectations of plans, strategies, objectives and growth and
anticipated financial and operational performance of the company and its
subsidiaries, including guidance regarding the company's drilling and
infrastructure programs and initiatives, production and sales volumes,
capital expenditures, capital budget, financing plans and growth rate.
These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual
results to differ materially from projected results. Accordingly,
investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements
as a prediction of actual results. The company has based these
forward-looking statements on current expectations and assumptions about
future events. While the company considers these expectations and
assumptions to be reasonable, they are inherently subject to significant
business, economic, competitive, regulatory and other risks and
uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which
are beyond the company's control. The risks and uncertainties that may
affect the operations, performance and results of the company's business
and forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those
set forth under Item 1A, "Risk Factors" of the company's most recently
filed Form 10-K.
Daily sales volumes at period end is an operational estimate of the
daily sales volume on a typical day (excluding curtailments) at the end
of the applicable period.
Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such
statement is made and the company does not intend to correct or update
any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise.
