The editors of Oil and Gas Investor are pleased to congratulate and recognize the 2008 winners of the magazine’s annual Excellence Awards program, which began in 2003. Nominations were received from readers.

Floyd Wilson, chairman, president and chief executive of Petrohawk Energy Corp., has been named Executive of the Year. While leading the Houston-based company, he has made a name for himself on Wall Street by reconfiguring the firm’s asset mix through acquisitions and divestitures, to focus on higher-margin shale plays. Since March 2008, the company has announced significant production growth. It holds a leading acreage position in the Haynesville shale in northwestern Louisiana, operating some of the play’s largest gas wells to date. Earlier this year, it also unveiled a dominant position in the emerging Eagle Ford shale in South Texas. (For more on Wilson and Petrohawk, see “Flying Strong” in the February 2009 issue and in the archives at OilandGasInvestor.com.)

XTO Energy Inc., Fort Worth, receives the award for Best M&A Deal for its purchase of privately held Hunt Petroleum Corp. for $4.2 billion. The largest acquisition in the energy industry for 2008, this deal was significant for XTO. It boosted its proved reserves by 1 trillion cubic feet or 10%, and added nearly 1 million acres of East Texas and Louisiana Haynesville potential, as well as an offshore position. The deal capped a transformational year for XTO, which acquired more than $10 billion of shale and tight-gas assets.

Best Financing of the Year goes to Concho Resources Inc. in Midland, Texas, for its $565-million cash purchase of privately held Henry Petroleum last summer, just before the capital-markets window closed. Advised by Banc of America Securities, Concho was able to increase its credit facility and add more banks to its lender group, close a private placement of stock and lock in new hedges to make the deal happen.

Best Discovery goes to Range Resources Corp. of Fort Worth for its leadership in the 54,000-square-mile Marcellus shale play in the Appalachian Basin, which may hold 500 Tcf of gas in place. Geologists long knew of this shale’s potential, but Range began in 2004 to drill new vertical wells and more recently, to investigate various horizontal drilling and completion techniques to make this shale commercial, building on its success in the Barnett shale. Range has accumulated a leading acreage and midstream position in the play as well.

Denver-based Whiting Petroleum Corp. is the winner of Best Field Rejuvenation for its work in the Postle Field in Texas County, Oklahoma. Since it acquired the field in mid-2005, the company has nearly doubled production, from 4,200 net barrels of oil per day then, to 7,900 net per day now. The company has expanded and optimized Postle’s enhanced oil-recovery project, including completion of 130 wells. It is currently injecting 140- to 150 million cubic feet of CO2 per day into Morrow sandstones in the field.

Best IR Program goes to Devon Energy Corp. of Oklahoma City. Through its strong efforts to engage investors and the general public, Devon has successfully communicated its solid business model, its immediate goals and its long-term growth prospects to the world at large. Through investor conferences, roadshows, oilfield tours, personal visits and community education and outreach, Devon’s IR team tells the company’s story with creativity and enthusiasm.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. wins for Best Corporate Citizen. The Oklahoma City company has been in the forefront of promoting increased use of clean-burning, abundant and domestic natural gas. In 2008 as the energy policy debate heated up, Chesapeake, the nation’s No. 2 gas producer and most active driller, launched both a television ad campaign and the American Clean Skies Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank to promote greater use of natural gas. The work of the foundation has led other U.S. gas producers to join in educating legislators, policy-makers and Americans on the benefits of natural gas. Chesapeake and 24 other producers have formed the American Natural Gas Alliance, representing 40% of U.S. gas supply and producing 9 trillion cubic feet of gas per year. They have pledged $100 million a year toward the organization’s work.