Company Places Order for 20 Vibrator Energy Source Units and Will Add 16th Data Acquisition Crew in May

MIDLAND, Texas, May 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Dawson Geophysical Company(Nasdaq: DWSN) today reported revenues of $78,363,000 for the quarter endingMarch 31, 2008, the Company's second fiscal quarter of 2008, compared to$59,935,000 for the same quarter in fiscal 2007, an increase of 31 percent.Revenue growth in the quarter was primarily the result of the addition of twoseismic data acquisition crews in April and September of 2007, increasedchannel count and productivity on existing crews.

Net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 was $8,292,000, comparedto $5,368,000 in the same quarter of fiscal 2007, an increase of 54 percent.Earnings per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 were $1.08 per share,compared to $0.71 per share in the same quarter of fiscal 2007. EBITDA for thesecond quarter of fiscal 2008 was $19,228,000 compared to $12,961,000 in thesame quarter of fiscal 2007, an increase of 48 percent. Included in the secondquarter results is a 41 percent increase in depreciation charges from theprior year period reflecting the Company's continued capital investment andgrowth.

The Company's second quarter results reflect continued brisk domesticexploration activities by the Company's clients, particularly those clientsseeking natural gas. Revenues in the second quarter of fiscal 2008 continuedto include high third-party charges related to the use of helicopter supportservices, specialized survey technologies, and dynamite energy sources. Thesustained level of these charges is driven by the Company's continuedoperations in areas with limited access in the Appalachian Basin, Arkansas,Val Verde Basin of Texas, and in Eastern Oklahoma. The Company is reimbursedfor these expenses by its clients.

Stephen Jumper, President and CEO of Dawson Geophysical Company said, 'Ourclients' desire for higher resolution subsurface images with improvedefficiency and channel count growth continued to drive our earnings andrevenues in the second fiscal quarter and six month period. In response tocontinued strong demand, Dawson Geophysical will field an additional crew, our16th, in May 2008 by redeploying an existing I/O MRX recording system. Thiscrew will be a smaller channel count crew initially committed to large scale2D and smaller 3D seismic projects.'

The Company's Board of Directors recently increased the Company's fiscal2008 capital budget from $30,000,000 to $55,000,000. The additional budget of$25,000,000 will be used to add to the vibrator energy source fleet, increasechannel count on existing crews, expand data processing capabilities, and tomake technical improvements in all phases of the Company's operations. Duringthe second quarter, the Company replaced an I/O System II MRX recording systemon an existing crew with an 8,000-channel ARAM ARIES recording system andplaced an order for twenty additional I/O vibrator energy source units, ofwhich thirteen have been delivered. The Company now operates in excess of115,000 channels and 136 vibrator energy source units.

Demand for the Company's services continues at a high level. Although theCompany's clients may cancel their service contracts on short notice, theCompany's order book remains strong, reflecting commitments to operate at fullcapacity on all crews through the end of calendar 2008 and on a number ofcrews well into calendar 2009. Operations are currently active on projects inWest Texas, South Texas, East Texas, the Barnett Shale of the Ft. Worth Basin,the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas, the Rocky Mountains, New Mexico, Oklahoma,Louisiana, and the Appalachian Basin.