Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. finished 2009 with its proven reserves up 20% year/year (y/y) to a record 601.9 Bcf from 502.6 Bcf, the Houston-based explorer said Wednesday. Almost 97% of the quarterly and year-end production was natural gas, Carrizo said.

Using the revised Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reserves rules, Carrizo said its core Barnett Shale leasehold was responsible for most of the new proven reserves, which jumped 137.6 Bcfe, or 32%, to 569.7 Bcfe from 432.1 Bcfe y/y. Proved developed reserves in the Texas shale play jumped 86.2 Bcfe, or 39%, to 309.9 Bcfe from 223.7 Bcfe.

In its Gulf Coast operations, the SEC revisions sent reserves at the end of 2009 down 5.8 Bcfe to 15.5 Bcfe from 21.3 Bcfe. The Camp Hill heavy oil steam-flood project, which is not scheduled to begin within the next five years, saw its reserves also fall 32.5 Bcfe to 16.7 Bcfe from 49.2 Bcfe at the end of 2008. Excluding the negative revision at Camp Hill, Carrizo said it would have had a 498% production replacement ratio.

“We had an excellent operational year in net reserve additions, despite our reduced drilling program and the impact of lower prices,” said COO Brad Fisher. “The strength of our Barnett Shale drilling program is illustrated by the 112.5 Bcfe of net proved developed reserve additions we made for less than $124 million in total Barnett Shale drilling expenditures.”

Production in 4Q2009 was a record 8.68 Bcfe (94.4 MMcfe/d), or more than 20% above the 7.21 Bcfe (78.4 MMcfe/d) of production in 4Q2008 and 5.8% above sequential production in 3Q2009. Annual production for 2009 reached a record level of 33 Bcfe (90.5 MMcfe/d), or 28.9% higher than the 25.6 Bcfe (70 MMcfe/d) in 2008.

Carrizo said it had 32.7 net horizontal wells at the end of 2009 in the Barnett Shale that were drilled but waiting on completion and/or pipeline connections. The company said the wells had a total estimated initial production rate of 77.6 MMcfe/d.

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