Capstone Secures Follow-On Order for Six C600s From Top Shale Producer

CHATSWORTH, Calif., Aug. 14, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Capstone Turbine Corporation (www.capstoneturbine.com) (Nasdaq:CPST), the world's leading clean technology manufacturer of microturbine energy systems, today announced a follow-on order for an additional six C600s totaling 3.6 megawatts from an independent exploration and production company operating in the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays.

The order for the C600 Power Packages is for installation at three different compressor stations in the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays and was secured by E-Finity Distributed Generation, Capstone's distributor for the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. and the Marcellus and Utica shale plays.

One of E-Finity's natural resource customers is once again choosing Capstone to power three more of their compressor stations. Each compressor station will have two C600 Capstone Power Packages, providing 1.2MW of primary power. The turbines will be the only power source for these remote stations. The exploration and production company chose Capstone's highly reliable microturbine technology over expansion of the local power grid due to the remoteness of the sites and the cost of extending the local grid. The turbines were also chosen due to their extremely low emissions, low lifecycle costs and continuous duty rating, among other critical factors.

"Challenged with strict air emissions requirements onsite, we were pleased to offer our low emissions turbines to the customer, which will keep the NOx emissions from our units under 5 ppm. It's a win-win for both the customer and the environment," said Jeff Beiter, Managing Partner for E-Finity Distributed Generation.

According to a recent Morningstar report, it has taken well-informed industry observers some time to recognize how big of an impact the Marcellus Shale play could have on the domestic natural gas landscape. In the words of one analyst, early predictions about the path of Marcellus production have proven "embarrassingly conservative" and they predict the Marcellus shale will be the biggest driver of U.S. gas production over the next few years, adding 3 Bcf/d in 2014 and another 2 Bcf/d in 2015, by which time it will account for close to one fourth of domestic volumes.  

Supporting Morningstar's forecast for robust Marcellus growth is the significant backlog of wells awaiting completion and tie-in, which they estimate will take between two and three years to clear. In addition, the pace of infrastructure build-out in the northeastern United States should accommodate production growth, with wet gas processing and takeaway pipeline capacity expected to be up more than 200% and 40%, respectively, through 2015.

The Utica Shale play is an expansive oil and natural gas field that is an estimated 170,000 square miles. The Utica Shale is estimated to be nearly twice the size of its more famous neighbor, the Marcellus Shale. Although the Utica is larger than the Marcellus, it lies deeper and as a result has not seen as much development as the Marcellus.

The U.S. Geological Survey predicts that the Utica Shale may contain 38 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas, 940 million barrels of unconventional oil resources and 208 million barrels of unconventional natural gas liquids. Forecasts by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources predict a typical Utica well may produce around 2-10 million cubic feet of natural gas a day and around 4 billion cubic feet over their life.

"Shale gas production continues to show steady growth, particularly here in the United States," stated Jim Crouse, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Capstone Turbine. "Follow-on orders like this from key exploration and production companies certainly indicate that major oil and gas producers are continuing to select Capstone's reliable and low emission microturbines as their preferred option for their critical onsite power needs," added Crouse. 

About Capstone Turbine Corporation

Capstone Turbine Corporation (www.capstoneturbine.com) (Nasdaq:CPST) is the world's leading producer of low-emission microturbine systems and was the first to market commercially viable microturbine energy products. Capstone Turbine has shipped approximately 7,000 Capstone Microturbine systems to customers worldwide. These award-winning systems have logged millions of documented runtime operating hours. Capstone Turbine is a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Combined Heat and Power Partnership, which is committed to improving the efficiency of the nation's energy infrastructure and reducing emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases. A UL-Certified ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 certified company, Capstone is headquartered in the Los Angeles area with sales and/or service centers in the New York Metro Area, Mexico City, Nottingham, Shanghai and Singapore.

This press release contains "forward-looking statements," as that term is used in the federal securities laws, about the growth of the oil and gas market and the advantages of our products. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as "expects," "objective," "intend," "targeted," "plan" and similar phrases. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties described in Capstone's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that may cause Capstone's actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied in such statements. Capstone cautions readers not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. Capstone undertakes no obligation, and specifically disclaims any obligation, to release any revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

"Capstone" and "Capstone MicroTurbine" are registered trademarks of Capstone Turbine Corporation. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

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Released August 14, 2014