RNS Number:0586N
Northern Petroleum PLC
02 July 2003



Immediate Release

                                                                       2 July 03

                              Northern Petroleum Plc
                                  ("Northern")

Northern Petroleum Plc today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Northern
Petroleum (GB) Limited has been awarded two new Landward Petroleum Exploration
and Development Licences covering 500 sq. km. (193 square miles) in Hampshire
and West Sussex. Northern will hold a 50% interest in these licences, PEDLs 125
and 126 and Magellan Petroleum (N.T.) Pty Limited is its partner. Northern has
been appointed Operator.

Derek Musgrove, Managing Director, stated:

"We are exceptionally pleased with the award of these licences which expands our
interest in the South of England. The applications were made on the basis of our
extensive petro-physical evaluation of electric logs and production tests of
many wells in the Great Oolite reservoir throughout the South of England, but
concentrating on producing oil fields where confidence in the information is
greatest. This exploration approach is similar to that used to identify the
potential of the Sandhills oil discovery on the Isle of Wight for which a
Planning Application is being submitted in order to drill it as soon as
possible. The work undertaken comprises a new method for the evaluation of
electric logs in the Great Oolite according to detailed characteristics of the
reservoirs.

From our re-evaluation of data from the old wells we identified six structures
that have been drilled and logged and on our analysis have oil columns capable
of economic production. As an extension of the process we also recognised two
un-drilled structures that are now considered very highly prospective.

Our estimate for the recoverable reserve potential of the two licences is in the
range of 35-75 million barrels of oil."


Derek Musgrove

Managing Director        Northern Petroleum Plc         Tel. +44 (0)20 7743 6080

Chris Roberts            Hansard Communications         Tel. +44 (0)20 7245 1100

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