Pacific Rubiales Announces Update on the Yaraqui-1X Exploratory Well, Topoyaco Block, Colombia

Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011

TORONTO, Nov. 21, 2011 /CNW/ - Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. (TSX: PRE; BVC: PREC) announced today the end of drilling operations at the Yaraqui-1X well, located in the Topoyaco block, in the foothills of the Putumayo Basin, where the Company has a 50% working interest and is the operator (in both cases subject to ANH approval). The well was drilled to a total depth of 10,651 fee, measured depth (MD), having drilled through the Tertiary and Cretaceous section and penetrating 61 feet into the pre-Cretaceous basement. This well was drilled as part of the original work commitment with the Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos
(ANH). PetroMagdalena Energy Corp. holds the remaining 50% working interest.

Ronald Pantin, CEO of the Company commented: "Drilling and logging operations to date provide encouraging indications to the potential of the sub-thrust play in the Topoyaco block. This play represents a new exploration horizon for the Company."

The well was spudded on August 31, 2011, and was drilled directionally with a southeast-northwest orientation, in a monocline structure in the sub-thrust of the Topoyaco anticline, and referred to as structure "D". This structure covers an area of approximately 4,500 acres.

Currently the Company is preparing to run casing and will proceed to test the well. This evaluation will allow the Company to determine the quality of oil and production potential for the Topoyaco subthrust prospect and to update the prospective resources present in the trap.

Pacific Rubiales, a Canadian-based company and producer of natural gas and heavy crude oil, owns 100 percent of Meta Petroleum Corp., a Colombian oil operator which operates the Rubiales and Piriri oil fields in the Llanos Basin in association with Ecopetrol, S.A., the Colombian national oil company, and 100 percent of Pacific Stratus Energy Corp. which operates the La Creciente natural gas field. The Company is focused on identifying opportunities primarily within the eastern Llanos Basin of Colombia as well as in other areas in Colombia and northern Peru. Pacific Rubiales has working interests in 46 blocks in Colombia,
Peru and Guatemala.

The Company's common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange and La Bolsa de Valores de Colombia under the ticker symbols PRE and PREC, respectively.

Boe may be misleading, particularly if used in isolation. A boe conversion ratio of 5.7 mcf: 1 bbl is based on an energy equivalency conversion method primarily applicable at the burner tip and does not represent a value equivalency at the wellhead.

SOURCE Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp.

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