Northern has today been informed by the Directors of ATI Oil Plc (“ATI”) that ATI has received confirmation from OFEX that its application for the introduction of ATI’s ordinary share capital onto the OFEX market has been accepted. Trading in ATI’s shares is scheduled to commence on Monday 29 November. On introduction, the Northern Group will be the second largest shareholder in ATI, holding 35,018,000 ordinary shares which represent 38.72% of ATI’s ordinary share capital on listing.

Northern is also pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Northern Petroleum (UK) Limited (“NPUK”), has been advised that two offshore Italian licences of which it is Operator, and in which it holds 69.36% beneficial interests through NPUK and ATI, have been decreed following acceptance of the environmental impact studies submitted by NPUK. The licences awarded have been renamed E.R51-NP (formerly d92ER.-NP), which is located in the offshore Tiber Delta, and C.R146.NP (formerly d344CR.-NP), located in the productive southeast Sicily oil province up against the Italian – Maltese boundary.

Managing Director, Derek Musgrove, commented:

“Northern is delighted that ATI’s application to join the OFEX market has been accepted. Northern and ATI look forward to working together to progress their mutual Italian ventures, with the joint short term aim to fast-track seven Po Valley gas prospects and leads estimated in total at over 500 billion cubic feet of gas potential to the point of drilling, and the undertaking of sufficient seismic reprocessing to fully establish the prospectivity of the three offshore licences which have the highest upside potential.

The Company takes very seriously its environmental responsibilities and is therefore pleased to report the acceptance by the Italian authorities of our environmental impact studies which have resulted in the final decree of these two licences. Northern believes that the final decree of licence applications indicates that the previous delays are an issue now resolved, and looks forward with confidence to announcing further licence decrees over the coming months.”

Further enquiries:

Northern Petroleum Plc
Graham Heard/Jerry Field
Tel: 020 7743 6080

Hansard Communications
Chris Roberts/Ben Simons
Tel: 020 7245 1100