High Plains Gas (OTCBB: HPGS) announced today that the company has begun preparations to produce coalbed methane (CBM) gas again. The company has personnel out in the field, and preparing its Patriot Energy Gathering LLC gathering and compression assets getting them “spooled” up to receive gas from the CBM wells that belong to Patriot Energy Resources LLC. High Plains CEO Ed Presley stated, “We plan to have 'Gathering' ready to receive first inline gas from the wells in the next couple of weeks. This first effort is small in scale to the overall job at hand, but after 25 months of being completely shut in, we are pleased with this initial step.”

High Plains Gas, Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiaries, owns and operates approximately 3,000 CBM wells. As of last week, all of their wells were in shut in status. High Plains Gas has a gas marketing agreement with United Energy Trading (UET) of Lakewood, CO. Once all preliminary work has been completed, the company intends on selling its gas though UET.

High Plains Gas, Inc.Bob Mitchell, 720-226-1031