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Friday, July 15, 2011

Magnum Hunter Buys New Rigs

- Magnum Hunter Buys New Rigs

Friday, July 15, 2011
Magnum Hunter Resources Corp.

Magnum Hunter announced that the Company's Appalachian Basin Division has acquired two new 2011 Schramm T200XD trailer mounted hydraulic drilling rigs ("Schramm Rigs") with a rated vertical working depth capacity of 9,000 feet. The two new Schramm Rigs will join the existing Alpha Hunter Drilling LLC ("Alpha Hunter") drilling rig fleet comprised of three Schramm T130 rigs.

All five of Alpha Hunter's drilling rigs are under term contracts with third parties who are operators active in the Pennsylvania and northwestern West Virginia Marcellus Shale region. When Magnum Hunter acquired Triad Energy early last year out of bankruptcy, the three existing Schramm Rigs were part of the overall acquisition. Alpha Hunter has been successful in contracting its rig fleet out on an improving day rate basis since last year. The existing drilling rig fleet have been primarily used to drill the vertical top hole sections for Marcellus Shale wells for third parties and for Triad Hunter LLC. These two Schramm Rigs can not only drill the surface holes, but they can also perform the directional drilling operations in unconventional resource shales in this region. They are equipped with automatic pipe handling systems, have unparalleled mobility and utilize the smallest footprint available in the market today. Due to the mountainous terrain in Appalachia, utilizing pad drilling and minimizing surface locations significantly reduce the location cost of each well.

The two new drilling rigs (including drill pipe) are being purchased for approximately $5.8 million and are being financed under a secured commercial bank term loan.

Management Comments

Mr. Kirk Trosclair, Senior Vice President of Equipment Services for Triad Hunter LLC, commented, "The addition of the two new Schramm Rigs recently acquired will expand Alpha Hunter Drilling's ability to provide top of the line, safety oriented, and cost effective contract drilling services for our Appalachian exploration and production customers. Additionally, Triad Hunter will receive the benefit of having an internal source for oilfield service equipment, supplies and drilling rigs available to draw upon and utilize as we expect the markets for this specialized equipment to continue to be extremely tight over the next several years. We believe adding these two high quality drilling rigs to our existing three rig fleet will allow Triad Hunter the greatest amount of operational flexibility in providing for our Company's internal needs as well as third parties."

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