Africa Oil Corp. provides drilling operations update on shabeel well in Puntland, Somalia

Thursday, Apr 12, 2012

Africa Oil Corp. (TSX VENTURE:AOI)(OMX:AOI) ("Africa Oil" or the "Company") is pleased to update the market on the drilling operations on the Shabeel well in Puntland, Somalia which is being drilled by the Company's 51% owned subsidiary, Horn Petroleum Corporation ("Horn"). Horn is the Operator and holds a 60% working interest in the Dharoor and Nugaal Valley Production Sharing Agreements ("PSA's") along with working interest partners Range Resources (20%) and Red Emperor (20%).

The Shabeel well is currently at a depth of 2703 meters and had just completed the setting of the 9 5/8" casing. The well drilled through primarily tight limestones and shales of Lower Tertiary to Upper Cretaceous age and encountered a 355 meter section of Upper Cretaceous sands and shales of the Tisje / Jesomma Formations at a depth of approximately 1660 meters. The sands in this interval exhibited both oil and gas shows and petrophysical analysis of downhole electrical logs indicates a potential pay zone of between 12 and 20 meters in the section. Attempts to sample formation fluids using a wireline formation tester were not successful and thus the zone will require cased hole testing to confirm whether they are oil bearing. At a depth of 2015 meters a thick section of tight limestones and shales was encountered extending to the present depth of 2703 meters which is believed to correspond to the Upper Cretaceous Gumburo Formation.

The forward plan on the well will be to drill ahead to the originally planned depth of 3800 meters to evaluate the primary and secondary reservoir targets in the Lower Cretaceous and Jurassic intervals equivalent to the main productive section seen in the analogous fields in Yemen. A testing program including the zones of interest seen to date and any deeper potential pay zones identified will be agreed with partners at that time. Upon completion of this well, the Company plans to move the rig to the Shabeel North location on which construction is nearing completion.

Horn President and CEO, David Grellman, stated, "We are encouraged by the results to date and pleased that we have confirmed the presence of an active petroleum system in the Dharoor Valley. We look forward to drilling ahead into the primary objectives of the well and hope to confirm the shallow prospective zones by testing in the near future."

Africa Oil Corp. is a Canadian oil and gas company with assets in Kenya, Ethiopia and Mali as well as Puntland (Somalia) through its 51% equity interest in Horn Petroleum Corporation. Africa Oil's East African holdings are in within a world-class exploration play fairway with a total gross land package in this prolific region in excess of 300,000 square kilometers. The East African Rift Basin system is one of the last of the great rift basins to be explored. New discoveries have been announced on all sides of Africa Oil's virtually unexplored land position including the major Albert Graben oil discovery in neighbouring Uganda. The Company is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange and on First North at NASDAQ OMX-Stockholm under the symbol "AOI".

Source: Marketwire

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