Northern Petroleum Plc announces that its Bouldnor Copse-1 exploration well in PEDL 089(A) on the Isle of Wight encountered the expected thick sequence of Sherwood sandstone of Triassic age and has been logged and found not to contain significant hydrocarbons. The decision has been taken to plug and abandon the well.

This brings to a conclusion the 2005 two well programme for the Wessex basin.

Derek Musgrove, Managing Director stated “The result is disappointing as we encountered a particularly encouraging reservoir formation in terms of porosity and thickness at the predicted depth, only to find that oil had not migrated into the structure. Before drilling, the presence of a good thickness of reservoir had been assessed as the main risk.

Whilst the implications for the Isle of Wight in the Wessex basin are very discouraging, I believe that shareholders should take heart that this does not reflect adversely upon the mapped and evaluated prospects in the Weald basin, scheduled for drilling in 2006."

PEDL 089(A) partners are:

For further information, please contact:

Northern Petroleum Plc
Derek Musgrove
Tel: 020 7743 6080

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