NWest Energy Extends Exploration Licenses- Offshore Western Newfoundland

NWest Energy Corp. ("NWest" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:NWN) announces that
the Company has elected to extend Period I of each of offshore Exploration
Licenses 1097 and 1098 to January 15, 2012 by posting a drilling deposit in the
amount of $250,000 for each license with the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador
Offshore Petroleum Board. Failure to drill or spud a well before the expiry date
of Period I of a license will result in the license reverting to the Crown and
forfeiture of the drilling deposit for the license. The Licence extension allows
the Company to keep its large acreage position (1.6 million acres) intact to
further pursue potential partners and evaluate other potential unconventional
plays that may emerge in western Newfoundland. The Company also owns the two
contiguous Exploration Licences 1103 and 1104 which are in good standing until
January 15, 2012. All of the licences are eligible for Period II of up to an
additional 4 years for those licences upon which a well is drilled. These wells
may consist of onshore to offshore drilling to test near shore targets. 


Nalcor Energy has announced that it has encountered natural gas in the first two
wells of a three well onshore program at Parsons Pond. The northern portion of
the NWest lands are immediately adjacent to the Parsons Pond area. Also, Shoal
Point Energy Ltd. has announced a drilling program for an unconventional oil
shale play in the Port au Port area in rocks similar to those contained in the
shallow near shore portions of the NWest lands. It may be possible to exploit
these shales on NWest lands from drilling sites onshore. An evaluation of this
unconventional play is underway.


The Company's lands cover a portion of the offshore Anticosti Basin adjacent to
the west coast of Newfoundland and contain a prospective sequence of
Cambrian-Ordovician platform rocks overlain by an untested foreland basin. The
exposed onshore stratigraphy contains mature oil source rocks, (Green Point
shale with up to 10% total organic carbon) including numerous oil and gas
surface seeps at Parsons Pond and a light oil discovery onshore at Port au Port.
Several seismically defined leads and prospects exist on Company lands. A
National Instrument 51-101 compliant Resource Assessment Report completed by
Sproule Associates Limited concluded that "the 11 most significant geophysical
anomalies herein considered as forming the initial exploratory drilling phase of
NWest's ongoing program may have an undiscovered in place resource in the order
of 3.8 billion barrels."


The Company continues to solicit partners to capitalize on this light oil
potential. 


There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be
accurate. Should one or more of these risks and uncertainties materialize, or
should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary
materially from any conclusions, forecasts or projections described in the
forward-looking information. Accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue
reliance on forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable
securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update
or revise forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise.