Forest Oil provides update on key properties

DENVER

Forest Oil Corp. on Thursday provided details on the progress it made at key properties in Canada and Texas.

"The company now has three growth engines which are the Texas Panhandle, the Haynesville/Bossier Shale, and the Deep Basin Nikanassin Play," said CEO Craig Clark. "As we move forward into 2010 and beyond, these plays will become the main component of our capital spending and organic growth."

At its Canadian Deep Basin Nikanassin play, which holds natural gas in sandstone formations, its 10-well program initially produced 14,000 cubic feet equivalent per day per well. The company also expanded its acreage by 43,000 acres to 105,00 gross acres.

In the Texas Panhandle, the company drilled and completed three new wells in Wheeler County with average 24-hour initial production rates of 24 MMcfe/d per well. The company also drilled and completed two new wells in Lipscomb County with the first producing at an initial rate of 8 MMcfe/d and the second at an initial rate of 20 MMcfe/d.

Forest drilled and completed one new Haynesville/Bossier Shale well with an initial production rate of 21 MMcfe/d.

The company said it expanded its acreage by 25,000 gross acres these properties in Shelby County, Texas and Sabine Parish, Louisiana.

Shares of the company fell $1.15, or 4 percent, to $27.50 in afternoon trading.