Our goal from the beginning has been to create value for our investors by building one of the largest onshore natural gas resource bases in the United States. For the past 12 years, our strategy to accomplish this goal has been to focus on developing unconventional plays onshore in the U.S., where we believe we can generate the most attractive risk-adjusted returns.
In building our industry-leading unconventional natural gas and liquids resource base from 1998-2010, we integrated an aggressive and technologically advanced drilling program with an active property consolidation program focused on small to medium-sized corporate and property acquisitions. During the past three years, we have shifted our strategy from drilling inventory capture to drilling inventory conversion. In doing so, we have de-emphasized acquisitions of proved properties while further emphasizing our industry-leading drilling program and converting our substantial backlog of drilling opportunities into proved developed producing reserves.
Due to recent low natural gas prices and positive results in the company’s liquids-rich plays, our goal is to reach a balanced mix of natural gas and liquids revenue as quickly as possible through organic drilling, rather than through acquisitions. This transition is already apparent in the mix of natural gas and oil and natural gas liquids wells we are drilling. In 2010, we expect that approximately 32% of our drilling and completion capital expenditures will be allocated to liquids-rich plays, compared to 10% in 2009, and we are projecting that these expenditures will reach 55% in 2012. Our production of oil and natural gas liquids has been increasing in 2010 as we develop our new unconventional oil plays, particularly in the Granite Wash and Eagle Ford Shale. To date, the company has built leasehold positions and established production in 12 disclosed and other undisclosed liquids-rich plays. The company now owns approximately 2.4 million net leasehold acres in liquids-rich plays.
Below we’ve detailed several key elements of our business strategy which include: