Abraxas posts year-end spike in oil and gas production

Abraxas Petroleum Corp.’s fields produced 7.7 billion cubic feet equivalent of oil and natural gas in 2006.

This is a 26 percent increase over the 6.1 billion cubic feet equivalent produced in 2005.

The company’s year-end oil and natural gas reserves stood at 99 billion cubic feet equivalent as of Dec. 31, 2006, a 6 percent decrease compared with Dec. 31, 2005, according to Abraxas’ independent reservoir engineering firm DeGolyer and MacNaughton in Dallas.

San Antonio-based Abraxas presented year-end operations and reserves as part of this week’s Independent Petroleum Association of America’s Small Cap Oil & Gas Investment Symposium in Boca Raton, Fla.

“We accomplished our goal of production growth through the drillbit in 2006 with an impressive 26 percent increase over the prior year,” Abraxas President and CEO Bob Watson says. “At year-end, we had a number of active projects, which if eventually successful, will not only add to our production profile but add proved reserves as well.”

The company’s capital expenditures for 2006 totaled $26 million, of which 35 percent was spent on two wells in the Southwest Oates Field in West Texas. These two wells were still in progress at year-end. Therefore, the company booked no significant reserves for the two wells.

Abraxas is an independent oil and gas company.

Published February 6, 2007 by the San Antonio Business Journal