PRESS
RELEASE
Malabo – July 2nd, 2010
In the City of Moscow, capital of the Russian Federation at 16:30 on the 26 of June, a Contract of Participation in Hydrocarbon Production was signed for Block K offshore the Corisco Bay, southeast offshore Rio Muni, covering an area of five thousand four hundred and sixty square kilometers (5,460 km2), five hundred and forty-six thousand (546,000) hectares. The contract is between the National Oil Company of Equatorial Guinea, GEPetrol and a Russian-American consortium, Vanco Corisco Deep LTD,
Vanco Corisco Deep LTD is the Operator with 80% interest while GEPetrol has a 20% interest during the exploration phase.
Post presidential confirmation of the contract, the subsidiary of Vanco Overseas Energy LTD operating the block has undertaken to open an office in Equatorial Guinea with a sufficient number of national employees for the start of operational activities based on the minimum work program agreed for the initial exploration period of five years. In this period the Operator will carry out a geophysical and geological evaluation of the existing data and will drill at least one exploration well in the block. The estimated minimum investment is 25 million US dollars. The validity period of the contract in the event of a discovery and of production start up of any field will be: 30 years for the crude oil and 35 years for natural gas.