28 May 2012

Sound Oil plc

("Sound Oil" or "the Company")

Operations Update - Citarum PSC, Java, Indonesia (Sound Oil 20%)

Sound Oil, the upstream oil and gas company with assets in Italy and Indonesia, announces that today 28 May, Pan Orient Energy, the Operator of the Citarum PSC, issued a press release which contained the following update on Citarum operations:

"The Jatayu-1 exploration well commenced drilling on February 15, 2012 towards a primary reservoir objective target depth of 7,382 feet. At 6,156 a drilling break occurred where the penetration rate increased from 16'/hour to 54'/hour over a 50' interval while drilling through sands, suggesting porous sands. Associated with this drilling break was an influx of gas (18% mud gas, above a background 0.8%) into the well bore that required an increase in mud weight and 2-3 hours to circulate the gas out of the mud system. Shortly thereafter the pipe became stuck. The well is currently being plugged back to the 9 5/8" casing shoe at 4,736' and will be drilled vertically from this location to avoid the issues associated with the initial directional/deviated hole in a complex fold belt environment. It is believed this will largely mitigate the difficulties experienced to date. The drilling break with associated gas influx observed in a secondary sandstone objective above the main reservoir target is very encouraging. The gas composition appears to be of biogenic origin (mainly methane), similar to the approximately 780 Bcf Subang gas field to the north in an adjacent concession.

Upon the completion of drilling at the Jatayu-1 well the rig will mobilize to the Geulis prospect and then to the Cataka prospect."

Gerry Orbell, Sound Oil's Chairman and Chief Executive, commented:

"We are very pleased that the Jatayu-1 well has encountered gas in a secondary sandstone objective and we expect to obtain further data on this as we drill on. Obviously the Jatayu-1 hole has been difficult to drill in this geologically complex region but I remain confident that the Operator is using its best efforts to overcome all the operational problems.  We look forward to encountering further hydrocarbon indications in the deeper principal objective which has most likely (P50) prospective recoverable resources of 290 Bscf."

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The information contained in this announcement has been reviewed by Sound Oil's Chief Operating Officer, Dr M. J. Cope BSc PhD CGeol FGS, a qualified petroleum geologist.  "Bscf" means billions of standard cubic feet of gas; "P50" refers to a 50% chance of finding a given volume and is consistent with SPE (The Society of Petroleum Engineers) guidelines.