Northern is pleased to advise shareholders that ATI Oil Plc (“ATI”), its joint venture partner in Italy, has today announced the final decree of the Longastrino licence in the Po Valley and the preliminary award of a further three licences in which Northern also has a 50% interest – Gattinara in the Western Po Valley, and offshore west of Sicily, d347C.R-.NP and d21G.R-.NP.

The full text of the ATI release is as follows:

ATI is pleased to announce that it has been advised by its partner, Northern Petroleum (UK) Limited (“NPUK”), a subsidiary of Northern Petroleum Plc (“Northern”), that the Italian authorities, having accepted the required environmental impact studies, have issued the final decree of the Longastrino licence in the Po Valley in which an ATI subsidiary has a 50% beneficial interest. 

In addition, NPUK has been advised of the preliminary award of a further three licences in which ATI subsidiaries have a 50% interest – Gattinara in the Western Po Valley, and offshore west of Sicily, d347C.R-.NP and d21G.R-.NP. Work on environmental impact studies will be commissioned shortly.

These decrees add to ATI’s position in Italy of: 

Ten licences now granted by full decree:

There are three licences for which the preliminary award has recently been offered subject to submission of acceptable environmental impact assessments:

Derek Musgrove, Chairman of ATI, commented:

“The above awards, together with seven licence applications (six uncontested) that came before the Italian Hydrocarbon licensing committee for consideration in December 2005, essentially complete the building of Northern and ATI’s asset base in Italy.

This significant position has been built over a three and a half year period is demonstrative of the substantial and valuable lead time we now have over our competitors. For the main, it has been put together during a period of low oil prices, allowing us to, to an unusual extent, “cherry pick” outside the Po Valley Basin region.

The objective has been to identify both old discoveries of oil and gas considered ripe for re-appraisal and highly prospective mainly offshore areas to which we will be the first group to deploy new technologies now available after a hiatus of exploration activity during the times of low oil prices.

The interesting and exciting exceptions are in the southern Adriatic and Ionian Sea where we will be progressing one gas and two oil discoveries made during those times of low oil prices and where the licences subsequently expired or were relinquished.  Here we believe that we may benefit from the fundamental change in economics. The Company will comment further when these licences are formally granted.

Onshore ATI believes it will additionally benefit from the deregulation of the Italian gas and electricity markets.”

For further details please contact:

Northern Petroleum Plc
Derek Musgrove, Managing Director
Chris Foss, Finance Director
Tel: 020 7743 6080

Investec
Michael Ansell
Andrew Chen
Tel: 020 7597 5000

Chris Roberts
Ben Simons
Hansard Communications
020 7245 1100