St. Mary Land and Exploration (NYSE: SM) is an independent oil and natural gas company that explores for and produces oil and natural gas from land reserves in North America. St. Mary looks to focus on maximizing production from existing properties, shielding itself from risk by acquiring oil and gas properties that complement the company's existing operations rather than exploring new, high-risk areas.^[1] St. Mary devotes more of its resources to developing its properties than any of its competitors, who have larger exploration budgets but are less focused on improving existing assets. St. Mary uses the capital it saves on exploration to hire teams of geologists, geophysicists and engineers with local expertise to focus on improving production in the locations where it has valuable reserves.

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, St. Mary conducts operations in 5 key areas within the United States: The Rocky Mountains, ArkLaTex (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas), the Mid-Continent, the Permian Basin and the Gulf of Mexico. St. Mary's production revenues have grown in each of the past three years due to the increase in oil and gas prices, and its proven reserves have grown as well thanks to key low-cost acquisitions. Over the past 5 years SM has increased its oil and gas production by nearly 10% per year.

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