ABOUT AUSTRAL PACIFIC

Austral Pacific Energy Ltd. is a listed junior explorer engaged in oil and gas exploration and production. Through its subsidiaries, this Canadian-incorporated New Zealand-based company controls interests in 13 exploration and production permits totalling over 2.6 million gross acres in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

Austral Pacific's shares trade on stock exchanges in the U.S.A., Canada and New Zealand.

Vision, Goal and Strategy

The vision of the Board and management is to grow the company from its current position as a junior explorer to that of a significant player in the E&P sector, a company whose stock is valued and sought after.

The company's overall goal is to create shareholder wealth by building a sustainable oil and gas production profile.

The company believes this can be achieved through:

• Pursuing geological and geophysical studies in order to identify, mature and high grade high impact, drillable prospects within the company's prospect inventory;
• Drilling exploration wells;
• Accelerating the development of existing discoveries in order to achieve early cash flows; and
• Developing and producing new, commercially viable discoveries.

In addition to pursuing an organic growth path, the company assesses and considers opportunities for growth through both merger and acquisition.

Building Value

Austral Pacific has three key components within its ever-developing asset portfolio for realising its vision and achieving its over-arching goal of creating shareholder wealth:

• Production delivering revenues today;
• Discoveries under appraisal and development which will deliver revenues in the medium term; and
• A focused exploration programme which will refresh the portfolio and deliver revenues in the longer term.