American Energy Development Corp. to Acquire Osprey Acreage

American Energy Development Corp. has entered into an agreement to acquire oil and gas rights to approximately 1,000 acres in Southern Lower Michigan known as the Osprey prospect.

The acreage, which further expands AED's regional presence, is located within a 12 to 15 mile wide proven reef belt running through several Southern Lower Michigan counties. Other developers have established producing fields in Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Oakland, Calhoun, Macomb and St. Clair counties.

The Osprey prospect is in close proximity to the 18.2 million barrel Onondaga field originally drilled by ExxonMobil. The prospect contains a Niagaran Reef target identified through the analysis of AED's proprietary high resolution 3D seismic data.

"This purchase is the result of a lengthy study of the seismic data," noted Joel Felix, CFO of AED. "Now with the drilling campaign on the Dansville prospect underway and revenues coming from our Brown 2-12 well, it was timely to add another attractive prospect to our portfolio."

According to the USGS report on the Michigan basin, the recoverable reserves are in excess of 1.8 billion barrels of oil and 17 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from the Niagaran reef formations, with more than 4,212 wells put into production to-date. These wells have produced a total of 472 million barrels oil and 2.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

"In keeping with our strategy of acquiring lower risk assets, this prospect already has 3D seismic and a defined drill target that will enable us to move quickly to begin drilling, which we expect to commence by mid-year," added Herold Ribsskog, president of AED.