Gastar Exploration Ltd. increased its net proven reserves 162% in 2004, attributing most of the increase from its Deep Bossier Hilltop play in East Texas. Year-end 2004 net proven reserves totaled 20.7 Bcfe and year-end net proven plus probable reserves totaled 62.2 Bcfe.

The company’s independent third-party reserve engineers booked proven and probable gross recoverable reserves of 93.6 Bcfe (48.2 Bcfe net to Gastar) for 13 160-acre locations in the Hilltop area. Last year Gastar and its partners also increased their leasehold position in the Hilltop area to 45,000 gross acres (21,612 net to Gastar), up from 35,000 at year-end 2003.

“The thirteen locations that account for the proven and probable reserves booked in East Texas represent approximately 5% of the 45,000 gross acres that Gastar and its partners had under lease in East Texas at year-end 2004,” said CEO J. Russell Porter. “We continue to believe, based on our activities and the activities of other operators in the area, that the Deep Bossier play represents a significant new exploration and development frontier in the East Texas Basin.”

Gastar, headquartered in Mount Pleasant, MI, focuses most of its exploration on coalbed methane development in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Australia. It also owns and controls exploration and development acreage in the deep Trenton-Black River play in the Appalachian Basin.

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