Glossary of Terms
Commonly Used Terms
Appalachian Basin — The area of the United States comprised of
those portions of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky and Virginia
that lie at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains.
British thermal unit (Btu) — a measure of the amount of energy required
to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.
Daily sales volume — An operational estimate of the daily gas sales
volume on a typical day (excluding curtailments).
Dekatherm (dth) — A measurement unit of heat energy equal to 1,000,000
British thermal units.
Development well — A well drilled into a known producing formation
in a previously discovered area.
Exploratory well — A well drilled into a previously untested geologic
prospect to determine the presence of gas or oil.
Farm tap — Natural gas supply service in which the customer is served
directly from a well or a gathering pipeline.
Futures contract — An exchange-traded contract to buy or sell a
standard quantity and quality of a commodity at a specified future date and price.
Gross — “Gross” natural gas and oil wells or “gross” acres equal
the total number of wells or acres in which the Company has a working interest.
Hedging — The use of derivative commodity and interest rate instruments
to reduce financial exposure to commodity price and interest rate volatility.
Horizontal drilling — Drilling that ultimately is horizontal or
near horizontal to increase the length of the well bore penetrating the target formation.
NGL — or Natural Gas Liquids, those hydrocarbons in natural gas
that are separated from the gas as liquids through the process of absorption, condensation,
adsorption, or other methods in gas processing plants. Natural gas liquids
include primarily propane, butane, ethane and isobutane.
Net — “Net” gas and oil wells or “net” acres are determined by summing
the fractional ownership working interests the Company has in gross wells or acres.
Proved reserves — Reserves that, based on geologic and engineering
data, appear with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in the future under existing
economic and operating conditions.
Proved developed reserves — Proved reserves which can be expected
to be recovered through existing wells with existing equipment and operating methods.
Proved undeveloped reserves — Proved reserves that are expected
to be recovered from new wells on undrilled proved acreage or from existing wells
where a relatively major expenditure is required for completion.
Reservoir — A porous and permeable underground formation containing
a natural accumulation of producible natural gas and/or oil that is confined by
impermeable rock or water barriers and is separate from other reservoirs.
Royalty interest — The land owner’s share of oil or gas production
typically 1/8, 1/6, or 1/4.
Transportation — Moving gas through pipelines on a contract basis
for others.
Throughput — Total volumes of natural gas sold or transported by
an entity.
Working gas — The volume of natural gas in the storage reservoir
that can be extracted during the normal operation of the storage facility.
Measurements
Bbl = barrel
Btu = one British thermal unit
BBtu = billion British thermal units
Bcf = billion cubic feet
Bcfe = billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalents
Dth = million British thermal units
Mcf = thousand cubic feet
Mcfe = thousand cubic feet of natural gas equivalents
Mgal = thousand gallons
MMBtu = million British thermal units
MMcf = million cubic feet
MMcfe = million cubic feet of natural gas equivalents