The Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board is pleased to announce the declaration of the configuration of the Terra Nova commercial discovery area. This declaration follows an application process which began in June, 1998 and enables the Terra Nova group to apply for a production licence. Although it has been recognized for some time that the Terra Nova field is commercially producible, the precise configuration of the commercial discovery area needed to be ascertained before a production licence could be issued for the particular lands. A commercial discovery of petroleum is one which has been demonstrated to contain petroleum reserves that justify the investment of capital and effort to bring the discovery to production and the commercial discovery area is the area to which the discovery extends.

The commercial discovery area, consisting of 40 sections, is comprised by lands held under SDL 208 (10 sections), SDL 196 (5 sections), SDL 1032 (2 sections), SDL 1033 (9 sections), SDL 1034 (8 sections), SDL 1006 (1 section), SDL 1007 (3 sections), and EL 1022 (2 sections).(Attached is a plat) indicating the location and configuration of the area.

The Terra Nova group consists of Petro-Canada, Mobil, Chevron, Murphy, Norsk Hydro, Husky and Mosbacher.

For general information regarding this news release, please contact:

Angus Taylor
Manager, Legal and Land
Tel: (709) 778-1458