Historically, the Sacramento Basin is one of California’s most prolific gas producing areas, containing a majority of the state’s largest gas fields. It is located near the Northern California natural gas markets and has an established natural gas gathering and pipeline infrastructure. We are one of the largest producers and leaseholders in the basin.
As of December 31, 2008, we owned approximately 69,000 net acres in the Rio Vista Field and Sacramento Basin areas. We believe our acreage in the basin holds significant low-risk, low-cost reserves, and numerous workover and recompletion opportunities. Additional reserve potential exists in gathering system optimization projects, fracture stimulation opportunities in lower permeability, low contrast pays, and deeper gas bearing sands.
For the year ended December 31, 2008, our average net daily production from the Rio Vista Field and surrounding fields in the Sacramento Basin was 43.6 MMcfe/d. In 2008, we drilled 14 gross wells of which 13 were successful.
Rio Vista Field. The Rio Vista Gas Unit and a significant portion of the deep rights below the Rio Vista Gas Unit, which together constitute the greater Rio Vista Field, is the largest onshore natural gas field in California and one of the 15 largest natural gas fields in the United States. The field has produced a cumulative 3.6 Tcfe of natural gas reserves to date since its discovery in 1936. We currently produce from or have behind-pipe reserves in multiple zones at depths ranging from 2,000 feet to 11,000 feet in the field. The Rio Vista Field trap is a faulted, downthrown rollover anticline, elongated to the northwest. The current productive area is approximately ten miles long and nine miles wide. For the year ended December 31, 2008, the average net daily production in the Rio Vista Field was approximately 39 MMcfe/d. We drilled 12 wells in the Rio Vista field in 2008; 11 of these were successful. Three wells drilled in the southern portion of the field were successful in extending areas in two reservoirs, the Lower Capay and the Martinez.
At December 31, 2008, we had one rig actively drilling in the field. There is one workover rig currently working on Rosetta wells in the Rio Vista area. We plan to conduct approximately 36 workovers, recompletions or reactivation operations on field wells during 2009. Moreover, a majority of 2009 time and effort will be devoted to resource assessments within the Rio Vista Gas Field. The evolution of the studies will generate the future drilling and recompletion inventory for 2010 and beyond.
Sacramento Valley Extension. We drilled two wells in the Sacramento Valley Extension area in 2008, both were successful. In 2009 we will continue to maintain operations through base optimization, selective recompletions, and asset rationalization.
