NEW YORK, July 28, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Gastar Exploration Ltd. (TSE:YGA) (Other OTC:GSREF), has enrolled in the unique shareholder empowerment platform administered by Investrend Communications, Inc., a provider of financial intelligence programs.
Institutional analyst coverage will be initiated by Investrend Research analyst Waheed Hassan, CFA. Investrend Research is located on the web at http://www.investrendresearch.com
Gastar Exploration is an exploration and production company focused on finding and developing natural gas in North America and Australia. The Company pursues a balanced strategy combining low-risk CBM development with select higher risk, deep natural gas exploration prospects. Gastar's CBM activities are conducted within the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and upon the approximate 4 million acres controlled by Gastar in Australia's Gunnedah and Gippsland Basins located in New South Wales and Victoria respectively.
The Company owns prospective acreage in the Deep Bossier Sand gas play of East Texas, in the deep Trenton -- Black River play of Appalachia and in the deep Temblor gas play in the East Lost Hills field within the San Joaquin Basin of California.
Gastar recently disclosed it has closed on the previously announced Powder River Basin Earn-In Joint Venture with Pinnacle Gas Resources, Inc., (Pinnacle) a new company formed by affiliates of Rocky Mountain Gas, Inc. (RMG, a subsidiary of U.S. Energy Corp. (Nasdaq:USEG) and Crested Corp. (OTCBB:CBAG), d/b/a USECC, and CCBM, Inc. a wholly-owned subsidiary of Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. (Nasdaq:CRZO) and Credit Suisse First Boston Private Equity fund.
For more information, visit http://www.gastar.com
An InvestorPower(tm) page has been created regarding the company at http://www.investrend.com/company/list.asp?sPathParam=yes.
Mr. Hassan is a CFA charter holder and a member of AIMR. He worked as senior research analyst at an affiliate of Merrill Lynch, Warburg Dillon Read, and Indosuez W.I. Carr Securities. He was rated amongst #1 Financial Sector research analysts by Asian Corporates in The Reuters Survey of Global Emerging Markets 1998. Similarly, he was a member of the #1 rated research team according to The Reuters Survey of Global Emerging Markets 1999 and Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2000. He was also the in-house economist at WDR and Indosuez W.I. Carr Securities and regularly contributed to international economic research publications. As a senior analyst, he participated in some of the largest corporate finance transactions, particularly those related to the financial services sector. He received his MBA from Vanderbilt University.
Investrend Research has been the leading independent equity research publishing and distribution program since 1996, with over 65 AIMR-qualified professional analysts posting more than 550 reports to date. Anyone may enroll a company in the Investrend platforms. Enrollment fees for the Institutional Research platform is $25,800 per annum. These enrollment fees are being paid by the company. Analysts are paid in advance for their initial reports by Investrend Research to limit or eliminate pecuniary interests, and no one associated with the program may own or trade in the equities of companies under coverage.
According to the New York Times, a survey by Charles Schwab & Co. reveals an astounding 78 percent of active stockholders now "value research from independent firms over analysis by Wall Street firms with financial ties to the companies they are rating." A survey at Investopedia reveals that 84.81% of investors say that "legitimate fee-based research is objective and useful," and 77.22% say that a company that enrolls for "legitimate fee-based research is making a positive statement about its investment potential."
Anyone interested in receiving alerts regarding Gastar research or webcasts should e-mail info@investrend.com with "YGA" in the subject line, or click on http://www.investrend.com/contact.asp.