28 July 2006
Matra Petroleum AGM
The Directors of Matra Petroleum plc are pleased to announce that all resolutions were duly passed at the company’s AGM held earlier today.
Peter Hind, Matra’s Managing Director issued the following statement:
“2005 was the formation year for Matra Petroleum and it was only at the end of the year that the opportunity in Hungary was identified. There is therefore little to report for 2005.
Since I joined Matra in January this year we have made huge progress for a small company with few staff. The first quarter of 2006 was largely concerned with the preparations for the company’s readmission to AIM, the reverse takeover of Inke Petroleum (that provided the 100% interest in the Inke Concession in Hungary) and the raising of £8 million. At the same time we were preparing to drill our first well.
This was all completed by early April when we changed our name to Matra Petroleum plc (formerly Ming Resources plc) to reflect the nature of our business and our area of focus. (Matra takes its name from a mountain range in Hungary.)
In the 31/2 months that followed the fund-raising we have:
 drilled our first well
reprocessed the 3-D seismic data
reprocessed 2-D data
remapped the 3-D data
begun AVO modelling work
commenced a review of the existing discoveries on the block
in addition to reviewing several new opportunities in Hungary and surrounding countries.
Although unsuccessful the Blue Topaz-9 well was completed within budget, and leaves the company well funded for further drilling and operations on the block. More importantly the well provided encouraging hydrocarbon shows and extensive sand development, and allowed us to acquire critical data for the AVO modelling. This modelling may help us to use the seismic data to predict the presence of hydrocarbons prior to drilling.
These exploration studies are progressing well and given the low cost, compared to drilling, it is important to maximise the benefits of this work before defining our ongoing drilling programme on the block. The work will be completed in early September and we will be making a further announcement on our exploration programme at that time.
The Hungarian Authorities have once again demonstrated their commitment to developing domestic resources by providing a 2 year extension to the concession. Given the huge area of the concession (2,297 sq kms), this is most beneficial.
We are continuing to review opportunities in both exploration and production in Hungary and other countries of Central Europe with the clear objective of adding shareholder value through low risk exploration and establishing early cash flow.
We have now established a small UK office in Chertsey in addition to our operational office in Budapest. Our Board and technical capability were both strengthened substantially in May when Neil Hodgson joined us as Exploration Director and we hope to strengthen the board further by appointing a UK based non-Executive Chairman.
The Board, the staff and consultants of Matra have all worked incredibly hard to achieve so much in a short time and will continue to do so to achieve our objectives for 2006.”
For further information, please contact:
Matra Petroleum www.matrapetroleum.com
Peter Hind, Managing Director +44 (0) 7990 807 855
Aquila Financial Limited www.aquila-financial.com
Peter Reilly +44 (0) 20 7202 2601
Ross Bethell +44 (0) 20 7202 2603
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