Chariot Regulatory News (CHAR)

21 December 2012

Chariot Oil & Gas Limited

("Chariot", the "Company" or the "Group")

Pre-Close Update

Chariot Oil & Gas Limited (AIM: CHAR), the Africa focused oil and gas exploration company, today gives the following update ahead of its full year results for the year ended 31 December 2012.

In addition to its expansion into Mauritania earlier this year, the Company has continued to diversify and balance its portfolio through the acquisition of further licence areas, Casablanca/Safi, Loukos and Rabat Deep, in Morocco. This served to both further broaden the Company's West African focus and also de-risk the exploration portfolio as Chariot now operates in frontier, emerging and proven hydrocarbon provinces with highly prospective acreage positions across three countries and five basins.

In line with its fast-track exploration policy, and with the support of the Mauritanian Ministry, the Company commenced a 3500km2 3D seismic survey in Block C19 within 5 months of receiving government approval of the licence. Both Morocco and Mauritania have seen increasing industry activity in recent months and the Company's Mauritanian dataroom, which opened this month, has already generated interest.

With regards to Chariot's Namibian acreage, the Company was pleased to announce the approval of the Second Renewal Phase for Northern Blocks 1811A&B and Southern Block 2714B in October. The in-house technical team continues to analyse and calibrate the results of both the Tapir South and Kabeljou well with the 3D seismic datasets. In the Central Blocks, the newly acquired 3500km2 3D seismic data is currently being mapped which will lead to an update to the prospective resource volumes in Q1 2013. A dataroom will be opened concurrent to this, which will include the data of both the Central and Northern block licence areas.

Owing to the significant amount of new proprietary information that the Company has acquired through the 2012 drill programme, Chariot's prospective resource inventory is currently under review and it is intended that an updated prospect inventory and consequential work programme will also be provided in Q1 2013.

The Company will focus on risk management going forward. The current work programmes require minimum expenditure and there is good head room for partner participation in the acreage which will ensure that Chariot retains a strong cash position. Management will continue to seek to reduce capital exposure through attracting further farm-in partners to share the costs and rewards of exploration.

Larry Bottomley, CEO, commented:

"Chariot's strategy remains centred around creating transformational growth through the discovery and development of new hydrocarbon provinces. Our Namibian assets are now part of a more diversified West African portfolio and we are very pleased to be early entrants with new licences in Mauritania and Morocco. We have acquired a substantial amount of data in recent months within our Namibian acreage, which remains our focus, enabling the team to work with a markedly increased amount of geological and geophysical information. This information is currently being reviewed and we look forward to providing an update on our prospective resource potential." 

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About Chariot

Chariot Oil & Gas Limited is an independent oil and gas exploration group. The Group currently holds licences covering eight blocks in Namibia, through its wholly owned subsidiary Enigma Oil & Gas Exploration (Pty) Limited, one block in Mauritania through its wholly owned subsidiary Chariot Oil & Gas Investments (Mauritania) Ltd., and three blocks in Morocco through its wholly owned subsidiary Chariot Oil & Gas Investments (Morocco) Ltd. all of which are offshore. All of these blocks are currently in the exploration phase.

The ordinary shares of Chariot Oil & Gas Limited are admitted to trading on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange under the symbol 'CHAR'.

The contents of the Company's website are not incorporated into, nor do they form part of, this announcement.