SOURCE: El Paso Corporation

December 30, 2008 17:44 ET

El Paso Corporation Obtains $300 Million Secured Revolving Credit Facility

HOUSTON, TX--(Marketwire - December 30, 2008) - El Paso Corporation (NYSE: EP) announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary, El Paso Exploration & Production Company, and certain of its subsidiaries have obtained a 364-day borrowing base facility that is collateralized by an estimated 0.4 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved natural gas and oil reserves. The facility will be effective December 30, 2008. The facility is available for general corporate purposes. El Paso Exploration & Production Company has no current plans to draw upon it.

"The new facility provides El Paso with additional liquidity so that we can meet any potential future challenges during these turbulent times," said Mark Leland, chief financial officer of El Paso Corporation. Today's announcement follows a December 9, 2008 debt offering, which provided $438 million of net cash proceeds.

The floating rate facility is supported by a group of commercial banks, and has a borrowing cost of LIBOR plus 3.50 percent.

El Paso provides natural gas and related energy products in a safe, efficient, and dependable manner. El Paso owns North America's largest interstate natural gas pipeline system and one of North America's largest independent natural gas producers. For more information, visit http://www.elpaso.com.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains certain forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based on assumptions that El Paso believes to be reasonable. However, a variety of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the projections, anticipated results or other expectations expressed in this release, including, without limitation, our ability to meet our 2009 debt maturities; volatility in, and access to, the capital markets; our ability to comply with the covenants in our various financing documents; actions by the credit rating agencies; the successful close of our financing transactions; credit and performance risk of our lenders, trading counterparties, customers, vendors and suppliers; changes in commodity prices and basis differentials for oil, natural gas, and power; our ability to obtain targeted cost savings in our businesses; general economic and weather conditions in geographic regions or markets served by the company and its affiliates, or where operations of the company and its affiliates are located, including the risk of a global recession and negative impact on natural gas demand; the uncertainties associated with governmental regulation; political and currency risks associated with international operations of the company and its affiliates; competition; and other factors described in the company's (and its affiliates') Securities and Exchange Commission filings. All of El Paso's forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements and any other cautionary statements that may accompany such forward-looking statements. In addition, El Paso disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.

With this in mind, you should consider the risks discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in El Paso's Annual and Quarterly Reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q and in the other documents El Paso files with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statement made by El Paso or on El Paso's behalf.