NGAS Resources, Inc., is an independent exploration and production company focused on unconventional natural gas plays in the eastern United States, principally in the southern portion of the Appalachian Basin. We specialize in generating our own geological prospects in this region, where we have established expertise and a long track record of success. Core assets include 77.9 billion cubic feet equivalents (Bcfe) of proved reserves, 352,000 acres, interests in 1,375 oil and gas wells, and 658 miles of gas gathering facilities. We control the gas gathering facilities for our core Appalachian properties. This enables us to move approximately 90 percent of our gas production directly from the wellhead to interstate pipelines serving major east coast natural gas markets. We believe our extensive experience in this region, coupled with our midstream assets, gas gathering infrastructure and relationships with partners, suppliers and mineral interest owners, gives us competitive advantages in developing these resources to achieve annual volumetric growth and strong financial returns on a long-term basis.
Our business is structured to achieve capital appreciation through growth in our natural gas production and reserves. During 2008, we achieved record production of 3.7 Bcfe, up 13% from the prior year. We also increased our estimated proved developed reserves at the end of 2008 by 18.7% to 57 Bcfe, with an additional 21 Bcfe of proved undeveloped reserves. Our undeveloped acreage position of nearly 200,000 acres in the Appalachian Basin provides us with an extensive inventory of low-risk, repeatable drilling locations for future growth.
In 2008, we transitioned our drilling program from vertical to horizontal drilling which is enhancing the value proposition for our operated properties by substantially increasing our recovery volumes and rates at lower finding costs. We focused our horizontal drilling program in our core Leatherwood field, where we successfully completed 20 horizontal wells in 2008. Each well has a single lateral leg up to 3,500 feet through the lower Huron section of the Devonian shale formation, which is present throughout our Appalachian operating areas. Given our success in Leatherwood, we have expanded our horizontal drilling initiative to our other properties. In the first two months of 2009, we successfully completed three wells in our Fonde, Stone Mountain, and Straight Creek fields in southern Appalachia.
Our gathering system, which currently totals over 658 miles, connects the majority of our wells to the interstate pipeline system with access to major natural gas markets in the eastern United States. It includes a 116-mile open access system that spans parts of southeastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia and connects to Duke Energy’s East Tennessee Natural Gas interstate pipeline system. Because we restrict third-party access to the majority of our pipeline, we enjoy competitive advantages in acquiring nearby acreage not yet developed.
We follow a disciplined capital allocation process in selecting opportunities to expand our substantial inventory of drilling prospects that meet our criteria for predictable, long-lived reserves. Our goal is to consolidate our position in the Appalachian Basin, while diversifying our asset base with similar unconventional plays outside the basin. As part of this strategy, we are aggressively developing our New Albany shale play within the south central portion of the Illinois Basin in western Kentucky where we have successfully drilled 37 wells in our new field discovery, Haley’s Mill. We currently hold 46,000 acres there for development. To move the gas to market, our gas gathering system and processing facilities came on line in September 2008.
The common stock of NGAS Resources is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol “NGAS”.