Continental Resources Increases Bakken Shale Holdings to 577,000 Acres

ENID, Okla., Sept. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Continental Resources, Inc. (NYSE: CLR) today announced that it has recently added 36,000 net acres to its holdings in North Dakota Bakken, including 32,000 net acres inMercer County, adjacent to other Continental acreage. The Company's total acreage position is now 577,000 net acres in the Bakken shale play ofNorth Dakota andMontana.

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The Company also announced initial production results for several recently completed wells, including its third and fourth wells completed in theThree Forks/Sanish (TFS) formation ofNorth Dakota.

The Croff 1-2H (33% WI) in McKenzie Co. flowed at an average rate of 1,001 barrels of crude oil equivalent per day (boepd) from the TFS formation during its initial week of production. The Croff 1-2H is the Company's third TFS test. It is located south of the Mathistad 1-35H, which the Company completed in July, flowing 1,260 boepd.

Continental's fourth TFS well, the Ronholdt 1-16H (54% WI) in Burke Co., produced at an average rate of 196 boepd during its initial week of production. The Ronholdt 1-16H was drilled as a single lateral on 640-acre spacing in contrast to the first three TFS wells that were drilled as single laterals on 1,280-acre spacing.

The Company completed the Rodney 1-29H (35% WI) in Dunn Co., with the well flowing at an average rate of 692 boepd during its initial week of production. The Rodney 1-29H was completed as a single lateral on 1,280-acre spacing in the Middle Bakken zone.

Continental is currently operating 10 rigs in the North Dakota Bakken play, with six of those targeting theThree Forks/Sanish formation. In addition, seven TFS wells have been drilled and are in various stages of being completed. Continental also has four rigs drilling inRichland County, Montana, where it plans to begin drilling its first TFS-test well inMontana later this month.

"We are very pleased with the Croff 1-2H and the consistency of results with ourThree Forks/Sanish wells in the central and south-central portions of ourNorth Dakota acreage," said Harold Hamm, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

"The Ronholdt 1-16H was the first of five test wells that we have drilled in the northernmost part of ourNorth Dakota acreage," he said. "The results from these five wells should give us a much better understanding of the potential of the TFS formation in this area." The Ronholdt is located east of the Nesson Anticline, which is the primary geological feature running north-to-south through Continental's North Dakota Bakken acreage. The four remaining TFS test wells are more centrally located on the Nesson Anticline and have been scheduled for completion.

"We are confident that theThree Forks/Sanish zone is a productive drilling objective," Mr. Hamm said. "Aside from increasing our production, theseThree Forks/Sanish completions are the first of several steps that may lead to confirmation of our theory that theThree Forks/Sanish is a separate oil-bearing zone from the Middle Bakken over the majority of ourNorth Dakota acreage."

Over most of Continental'sNorth Dakota acreage, theThree Forks/Sanish formation lies approximately 50-to-125 feet beneath the base of the Upper Bakken shale. Prior to completing its first TFS well in May 2008, Continental had completed all of its North Dakota Bakken wells with a lateral well bore located just below the base of the Upper Bakken shale, in the Middle Bakken zone.

Mid-Continent and Red River Units

Continental continues to move forward with drilling in the Arkoma Woodford shale play andAnadarko Basin inOklahoma, as well as with secondary recovery efforts in the Red River Units in the Rocky Mountain region.

In the Arkoma Woodford play, Continental recently completed the Blevins 1-1H (54% WI) inHughes County, OK, for an average rate of 8.1 MMcf per day during the first week of production.

The Company announced the Hightower 1-29 (99% WI) in Blaine Co., was completed flowing at an average rate of 5.9 MMcfe per day during its initial seven days of production from the Britt sand.

Finally, Continental announced that it had completed the new water-source well in the Red River Units, a necessary step in accelerating its secondary recovery water-flood program. Average production was 13,551 boepd in the Units in the second quarter of 2008, and is expected to peak at approximately 21,000 boepd in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Continental Resources is a crude-oil concentrated, independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company with operations in the Rocky Mountain, Mid-Continent and Gulf Coast regions ofthe United States. The Company focuses its operations in large new and developing resource plays where horizontal drilling, advanced fracture stimulation and enhanced recovery technologies provide the means to economically develop and produce oil and natural gas reserves from unconventional formations.

     Contact: Warren Henry                Brian Engel
              Investor Relations          Media
              (580) 548-5127              (580) 249-4731

SOURCE Continental Resources, Inc.

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