Echo Energy Regulatory News (ECHO)

17th April 2012

Independent Resources plc

("IRG" or "the Company")

Geostock Reviews Rivara Project

Independent Resources plc (IRG:L) is pleased to announce that it has received the Subsurface Peer Review Report it had commissioned from Geostock, the Paris-based international engineering group and a key technical player in the underground storage of natural gas. This report follows, as announced on 22 February 2012, the receipt by decree of the environmental compatibility authorisation for the next phase of the Company's Rivara underground gas storage project in Northern Italy.

The Company has previously stated that Rivara will likely be developed in partnership with a continental European integrated gas company capable of realising the Project's strategic advantages. European gas markets are consolidating as flexibility and security of gas supply become vital to assist the implementation of a more liberalised and more dependable market-based transmission system. The Peer Review Report was commissioned to illustrate the geological and storage performance characteristics of the Project to justify the next phase of operations (a comprehensive sub-surface data acquisition programme) and why the Project's attributes are potentially very valuable.

In parallel, the Company continues to work with its industrial allies and administrative stakeholders at various government levels to reach agreements that would pave the way for the development of the Project, a potentially key part of Italy's gas infrastructure system.

The Company looks forward to updating its progress on these matters in due course.

Background details follow:

Independent Resources is the planned developer of the Rivara underground gas storage site located in the Po Valley, Northern Italy, a deeply-buried, highly-fractured limestone structure with inherent geological characteristics that make it ideal for summer storage and rapid winter withdrawal, using the benefit of a natural water drive. It is also located right at the hub of Italy's gas transmission system, along the main trunk line corridor from North Africa into Southern Europe.

IRG is aiming to develop the project against a backdrop of Italy's urgent demand for new gas storage facilities, following disruptive winter supply shortages and major supply disruptions. Independent Resources has continued to work carefully within the complex framework laid down by the regulatory and environmental processes in Italy, where Rivara remains a key project. IRG characterises Rivara as a much-needed infrastructural investment in an extremely under-supplied market, and as a project that is relatively insensitive to short-term fluctuations in market conditions.

IRG holds extensive unconventional oil exploration interests in Tunisia, unconventional gas exploration interests covering the entire Ribolla shale gas basin in Italy, and the strategically-positioned Rivara gas storage project in the Po Valley, in addition to other emerging interests in CO2 sequestration.