$20 Billion of Oil and Gas Deals Currently on the Market

HOUSTON, May 28 /PRNewswire/ — Derrick Petroleum Services (“Derrick”)
has completed a comprehensive study of the Top 1000 global oil and gas
companies and identified in excess of $20 billion of oil and gas assets
currently for sale worldwide, consisting of 69 separately announced
transactions. The study focuses on deals with an estimated value greater than
$10 million.

North America leads the inventory with over $9 billion (or roughly 45% of
value); followed by Africa (22%) with the North Sea, Rest of Europe, South
America, Asia, Australia and Middle East rounding out the pack with deals
valued at between $500 million to $1.5 billion.

In North America, the most prized deal is the multi-billion dollar
interest Devon Energy is offering in its four discoveries (Kaskida, Cascade,
Jack and St. Malo) in the emerging Lower tertiary trend in the deepwater Gulf
of Mexico. Onshore resource style plays (shale gas and oilsands) remain quite
active. Notably, Shell and EnCana are looking for a partner to develop 30,000
acres of exploration leases in the Haynesville shale gas play of north
Louisiana and east Texas. In Canada, UTS Energy rejected the revised $677
million cash bid by Total E&P Canada in April as inadequate and continues
working with its financial advisors, RBC Capital and TD Securities, to
maximize shareholder value. UTS Energy has 1.7 billion barrels of net
contingent bitumen resources in the Athabasca Oil Sands area of Alberta.

Internationally, Africa is exciting with numerous deals. In Ghana, two
partners have put interests on the market in the world class offshore Jubilee
field (estimated 1.2 billion barrels equivalent of gross recoverable
reserves). Other deals are available in Uganda, Angola, Kenya, Egypt, Cote
D’Ivoire, Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon and Namibia. In other parts of the world,
significant deals in play include development projects in the Kurdistan
region of Iraq, which now has an improving political and security
environment. In Indonesia, BP is seeking to harvest its 46% interest in the
prolific Offshore North West Java block, which includes 670 producing wells,
170 platforms and 1,600 km of subsea pipelines. Chevron has retained Scotia
Waterous to sell its interest in 13 separate concessions in the Austral and
Nequen basins of Argentina which were producing nearly 4,500 b/d of gross oil
and 54 MMcf/d of gross gas in late 2008. In Australia, Woodside Petroleum has
put its Otway project, offshore Victoria, on the market.

“Due primarily to the whipsaw in oil and gas prices over the past 12
months, our analysis highlights an unusually high quality and diverse set of
world class opportunities, particularly for well-heeled buyers seeking long
term assets in early stage development,” according to Yashodeep Deodhar, CEO
of Derrick Petroleum Services. “These are not distressed assets put on the
market by distressed companies. Quite the contrary, we have identified
numerous opportunities by first class operators who are simply managing their
forward risk profiles and laying off a portion of development capital. We
foresee the recent trend of national oil companies (NOCs) and government
backed oil companies dominating the buy side to continue.”

In completing the study, Derrick also reviewed past M&A activity and
trends. “In contrast to the first half of 2008 where seven of the top ten
buyers were western companies; so far this year, only three of ten buyers are
western. Buyers of significant deals have recently been mostly NOCs and
government-backed companies such as IPIC (Abu Dhabi), CNPC (China), KNOC
(Korea) and Ecopetrol (Colombia),” according to Deodhar.

“In addition to tracking deal activity, value trends regionally and
globally, and deals in play, we also continuously monitor companies with
financial dry powder and a desire to do more deals. Currently, notables on
this list include Norway’s StatoilHydro, Colombia’s Ecopetrol, China’s
Sinopec, France’s Total, United States’ Apache Corporation and Canada’s
Talisman Energy. These companies alone have over $20 billion of capability,”
concludes Deodhar.

Derrick Petroleum Services is an independent oil and gas research and
consulting firm. Its team of twenty analysts maintains Upstream Oil and Gas
activity databases for a global client base. The Company’s databases have
worldwide coverage, with special emphasis on emerging plays and international
transactions. The Company maintains sales offices in Houston and London.

For more information:

Additional information regarding Derrick Petroleum Services and its
products is available on the Company’s website at
http://www.derrickpetroleum.com.

    For further details of the study, kindly email info@derrickpetroleum.com.

    Per:
    Yashodeep Deodhar
    CEO
    Derrick Petroleum Services
    info@derrickpetroleum.com

SOURCE Derrick Petroleum Services