Australia Overview

Norwest has interests in two major yet underexplored oil and gas provinces in Western Australia – the Timor Sea’s Vulcan Sub-Basin and the northern Perth Basin.

Vulcan Sub-basin

In the Vulcan Sub-basin, Norwest has a 1.25% gross overriding royalty interest in AC/P22, which contains the Puffin oil field and surrounding exploration acreage. Puffin has had a troubled history but the project partners – Chinese giant Sinopec and AED Oil – are working on plans to deal with the field’s problems and aim to resume production in 2011 or 2012. Norwest remains confident of the potential of Puffin and of the area’s exploration upside.

Perth Basin

Norwest has interests in three northern Perth Basin project areas – one offshore and two onshore.

The Company’s offshore northern Perth Basin permit is TP/15 (Norwest 100%) off the coast of Dongara. This holds several exciting oil prospects, including Xanadu and Redhill South. Norwest is aiming to drill either or both of these Prospects in 2010.

In the onshore northern Perth Basin, southeast of Dongara, Norwest holds a working interest in the L14 production licence and the surrounding exploration permit, EP413. The L14 block contains the producing Origin Energy-operated Jingemia oilfield, which delivers a modest, but steady flow of revenue to Norwest, while EP413 offers exploration upside.

To the east of Dongara, Norwest and Empire Oil & Gas have agreed to swap equities in the adjoining licenses EP368 (Norwest) and EP426 (Empire) in order to appraise the North Erregulla oil discovery, a known but undeveloped field with high-quality oil discovered in 1973. The North Erregulla prospect straddles the two licenses and the equity swap will allow it to be explored with one definitive well.