Echo Energy Regulatory News (ECHO)

22nd February 2012

Independent Resources plc

("IRG" or "the Company")

Rivara Project obtains Ministerial Decree

Independent Resources plc (IRG:L) is pleased to announce that both the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Cultural Assets and Activities have executed by decree the environmental compatibility authorisation for the next phase of the Company's Rivara underground gas storage project in Northern Italy.

This decree formalizes the recent decision by the Ministry of Environment's "VIA Commission" to sanction the project's appraisal phase, which is designed to definitively confirm the project's technical characteristics and therefore both its safety and feasibility.

The Company welcomes this long-awaited development particularly in light of the recent and well-publicised winter gas supply shortages and gas supply disruptions affecting Italy. The Company hopes that Italy's Ministry of Economic Development can now work cooperatively alongside the Region of Emilia-Romagna to reach the required agreements for a mineral title that would then allow the Company to drill its planned appraisal wells and ultimately pave the way towards the security of gas supply and flexibility that Italian industry has been advocating for years.

The Company is also pleased with the well-publicised statements of support for Rivara at many levels. There are significant financial and fiscal benefits, codified by law, available to the local communities hosting the project. Equally, however, there remains opposition to the project on grounds that it could be dangerous or not useful. Over many months, the Company has produced comprehensive analysis that details every aspect of the project.

Ultimately the outcome was that the VIA Commission, after an exhaustive review process, decided there were no good reasons not to allow the project to proceed.

The Company remains confident that all stakeholders will benefit from this vital proposed new addition to Italy's natural gas infrastructure and that the project will fulfil both its local responsibilities and its strategic potential. The VIA decree is a fundamental, scientific and apolitical milestone that the Company is very pleased to have achieved.

The Company now looks forward to updating the status of the Ministerial-Regional discussions as well as the interest that major Italian gas distribution companies have expressed in assuring their security and flexibility of supply from new and reliable gas storage capacity.

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.