Arena Resources Announces 2008 Capital Expenditure Increase to $248 Million
Tulsa, Oklahoma — June 23, 2008 — Arena Resources, Inc. (NYSE-ARD)(“Arena”)(“Company”) announced today that the Board of Directors of Arena has approved a $30 million increase in its capital expenditure budget (“CAPEX”) for 2008, making a total of $248 million. The additional funds are directly related to increased activity at the Company’s Permian Basin properties in southeast New Mexico and west Texas. 

Arena has received delivery and commenced drilling operations with its second contract rig, making a total of four drilling rigs in operation at the Fuhrman Mascho. The additional funds will be used to increase the number of new development wells to be drilled on this property in 2008 from 222 to 257 and increase the number of re-fracs of existing wells from 40 to 50. In total, the Company has increased the number of new development wells to be drilled on all of its properties  to 303 and re-fracs, including all workovers, to 129.

The Company continues to look for acquisition opportunities but has made no provision in its 2008 budget for acquisitions. The recently announced $10.2 million New Mexico acquisition (June 5, 2008) is not included in the 2008 CAPEX budget.

Mr. Phil Terry, CEO stated, “We are pleased to announce that our fourth drilling rig has arrived and is on site at our Fuhrman Mascho property. We are currently drilling our 98th new development well in 2008 and 354th new well since April 2005. We still have an inventory of approximately 1,900 drill sites on this property based on 10 acre spacing. We now have approximately 26,000 acres in the Fuhrman Macho, including 3,600 acres acquired this year, and we continue to aggressively seek additional acquisition opportunities that compliment this core asset.”