St. Mary Announces Successful Test in Eagle Ford Shale Program

DENVER--(Business Wire)--
St. Mary Land & Exploration Company (NYSE: SM) announces today the successful
completion of its first operated horizontal Eagle Ford shale well, the Briscoe G
1-H (SM WI 100%) in Webb County, Texas. The well produced at an average sales
rate of 5.6 MMCFED (4.4 MMCF/d of natural gas and 192 Bbl/d of condensate) over
a seven day initial flow period, during which the well was facility constrained.
The well was drilled to a depth of approximately 7,500 feet TVD (11,350 feet MD)
and completed with a 3,200 foot lateral using a ten stage hydraulic fracture
treatment. Total well cost was $5.2 million, including the extra cost of
drilling a pilot hole, coring, logging and micro-seismic monitoring during the
fracture treatment. St. Mary anticipates that future completed well costs will
be in the range of $3.5 to $4.5 million, depending on well depth.

St. Mary currently has a total of 225,000 net acres earned to date with
potential for the Eagle Ford shale in Dimmitt, LaSalle, Maverick and Webb
counties in Texas. Of this total, approximately 66,000 net acres relate to
acreage earned through its joint venture with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and
TXCO Resources. The Company has the ability to earn roughly an additional 20,000
net acres through the joint venture. The remaining 159,000 net acres is outside
of the joint venture, where St. Mary has 100% working interest.

The Company is currently operating two drilling rigs in this program in an
effort to further delineate the potential of its acreage position. One rig is
drilling in Webb County on St. Mary`s 100% working interest acreage while the
other rig is drilling on joint venture acreage in Dimmitt County. St. Mary has
already drilled and cased another horizontal test on joint venture acreage, the
Shape Ranch 1-H in Dimmitt County, which is awaiting completion. For the
remainder of 2009, the Company plans to drill two additional horizontal wells on
its 100% acreage and two additional horizontal wells on the joint venture
acreage, as well as complete and interpret its ongoing 3D seismic efforts.

Tony Best, CEO of St. Mary, said, "We are pleased with this result from the
Briscoe G 1-H and learned a great deal from the data we collected during the
drilling and completion. While we were limited to some extent from testing the
well at its full potential due to facility constraints, we believe that this is
a very favorable result for our Eagle Ford program. Our Eagle Ford acreage is
shallower compared to some other areas of Eagle Ford activity in the Maverick
Basin, which will allow for shorter drill times and less expensive wells. A key
goal of the Company is to add projects to our inventory that have attractive
finding and development costs and margins. We think that this program has the
potential to provide very competitive per unit reserve additions in the future.
As always, St. Mary remains focused on growing value for our shareholders and I
believe that the Eagle Ford could be a meaningful driver toward that goal."

INFORMATION ABOUT FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of
securities laws, including forecasts and projections. The words "will,"
"believe," "anticipates," "could be," and "plans" and similar expressions are
intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although St. Mary believes the
expectations and forecasts reflected in these statements are reasonable, it can
give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. These statements involve
known and unknown risks, which may cause St. Mary's actual results to differ
materially from results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.
These risks include such factors as the volatility and level of oil and natural
gas prices, the availability of economically attractive exploration and
development opportunities and any necessary financing, lower prices realized on
oil and gas sales resulting from our commodity price risk management activities,
unsuccessful exploration and development drilling, the imprecise nature of
estimating oil and natural gas reserves, uncertainties inherent in projecting
future rates of production from drilling activities and acquisitions, drilling
and operating service availability, uncertainties in cash flow, the financial
strength of hedge contract counterparties, the negative impact that lower oil
and natural gas prices could have on our ability to borrow, litigation,
environmental matters, the potential impact of government regulations, and other
such matters discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of St. Mary's 2008 Annual
Report on Form 10-K and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed with the
SEC. Although St. Mary may from time to time voluntarily update its prior
forward-looking statements, it disclaims any commitment to do so except as
required by securities laws.

St. Mary Land & Exploration Company
Brent A. Collins, 303-861-8140

Copyright Business Wire 2009