Commencement of Drilling

1 Aug 2005 08:17

Immediate Release: 1 August 2005 Northern Petroleum Plc ("Northern") Sandhills-2 commences drilling Northern Petroleum Plc ("Northern") announces that drilling commenced at theSandhills-2 well on 1st August 2005. The well is located in PEDL 098 atco-ordinates OS 446150 E, 089815 N and has a planned total measured depth of4167 feet. The primary target is the Great Oolite and the reserve potential isevaluated at being in the range of 10 to 50 million barrels recoverable.Following the drilling of Sandhills-2 the rig will be moved to the BouldnorCopse-1 well site near Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight to drill both a structureat the Great Oolite level and a deeper and potentially larger explorationprospect in the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone on licence PEDL 089 with a reservepotential of 90 to 140 million barrels recoverable.PEDL 098 partners areNorthern Petroleum (GB) Limited 57.5% Black Rock Resources (UK) Limited 5.0% Magellan Petroleum (N.T) Pty Limited 22.5% Oil Quest Resources Plc 7.5% Oil and Gas Investments Limited 2.5% Montrose Industries Limited 5.0%PEDL 089(A) partners areNorthern Petroleum (GB) Limited 70% Wessex Exploration Limited 20% Oil Quest Resources Plc 10%-Ends-For further information contact:Derek MusgroveNorthern PetroleumTel. 020 7743 6080Chris RobertsHansard CommunicationTel. 020 7245 1100ENDNORTHERN PETROLEUM PLC