TMAN Timan

RNS Number:0332S
Timan Oil & Gas Plc
10 April 2008


10 April 2008

                    Timan Oil & Gas Plc ("Timan" or the "Company")

           Rosnedra Recognises Oil Discovery and State Reserves Committee 
                       approves Reserves on the KNG Field

*   Certificate of Commercial Discovery issued by Rosnedra
*   Recoverable reserves evaluated at 17.6 million tonnes (Category C1+C2) 
    according to the Russian
    Classification (the Company estimates is equivalent to approximately 
    112.6 million barrels)
*   The Certificate of Commercial Discovery allows the Company to apply for a 
    production licence


Timan announces that on 31 March 2008 its wholly-owned subsidiary OOO
Komineftegas (KNG) was officially issued with a Certificate of Commercial
Discovery by the Russian Federal Subsoil Agency (Rosnedra) in relation to the
discovery of oil made within the Company's exploration licence area at the
Khudoyelskoye oilfield in the Timan-Pechora region of the Komi Republic (KNG
Field). The Company notes the publication on 14 March 2008 of the following
announcement on Rosnedra's official website:

"Significant Commercial Discovery of Oil made in the Komi Republic.

The Khudoyelskoye field (KNG field) was discovered by OOO "Komineftegaz" (KNG)
in 2007 by obtaining the oil flow from well # 21-KH (Khudoyelskaya) in the
Carboniferous Formation (shallow reservoir).  On 27 February 2008 the State
Reserves Committee (GKZ) approved the oil reserves for 5 deposits of the shallow
reservoir at the Khudoyelskoye field (KNG field): the Original Oil in Place
(OOIP) reserves were evaluated at 88.2 million tonnes (Category C1+C2) which
includes 3.2 million tonnes (Category C1); the recoverable reserves were
evaluated at 17.6 million tonnes (Category C1+C2) which includes 0.641 million
tonnes (Category C1). In accordance with the GKZ decision, the reserves are to
be put on the State Register of Natural Reserves under Category C1+C2.

The KNG field is located in the Pechora region of the Republic of Komi which is
57 km from the city of Pechora. The nearest producing fields are the Yugidskoye
and Zapadno-Soplesskoye oil-and-gas condensate fields and Yuzhno-Kyrtayelskoye
oil-and-gas field as well."

It should be noted that the Russian authorities classify the above reserve
figures as a new "discovery" as there were previously no Russian registered
reserves for either reservoir in the KNG Field.  No reserves have been
attributed by the Russian authorities at this stage to the deeper, Devonian
reservoir, pending further drilling.  The oil flow described in the announcement
for well # 21 was 20 bopd for several days.


An independent evaluation of the KNG Field under SPE standards was carried out
in 2006 by Miller and Lents Ltd (Miller & Lents), and at that time the shallow
reservoir was estimated to contain approximately 57.7 million barrels (the
Company estimates to be approximately 9 million tonnes) of SPE contingent
resources on a "best estimate" basis.    Since then, Timan has drilled two
further appraisal wells to the shallow reservoir (one in 2006 and one in 2007),
and, as the reservoir contains heavy oil, conducted a "huff and puff" steam
injection pilot on well # 21 over a period of one month in 2007.  The Company
intends to submit the results of the steam injection to Miller and Lents.
However, an updated resource evaluation, which could result in some or all of
these SPE contingent resources being re-classified as reserves, is not expected
from Miller & Lents until Timan submits positive results from the drilling of a
further four to six appraisal wells on the shallow reservoir.  Under the field
development programme for the KNG Field, Timan intends to drill six appraisal
wells in the shallow reservoir and one exploration well in the Devonian
reservoir, subject to obtaining funding of approximately �5 million,
approximately over the next two years.

It should be noted that there are fundamental differences between the Russian
Classification System and SPE standards, which do not allow direct comparison of
resource/reserve figures and that the Russian State Classification system is not
an acceptable standard under the AIM Rules.  Any reassessed figures may not
necessarily be similar to the Russian State Classification figures stated above.

According to the Certificate of Commercial Discovery issued by Rosnedra the
Company has 6 months from the date of the certificate to apply for the
production licence on a non-competitive basis and such an application can take
some 2-3 months to process. The application procedure involves the submission of
relevant documentation, including the terms and conditions of the proposed
licence, and payments to be agreed with the relevant authorities.

As announced on 27 March 2008, the Company requested a temporary suspension of
trading of its shares on AIM whilst it considers matters relating to its
financing and a further announcement in relation to this will be made as soon as
possible.

Alexander Kapalin, CEO of Timan commented: "The approval of reserves in relation
to the shallow reservoir of the KNG Field by the Russian State Reserves
Committee is a very welcome development for Timan as the KNG Field is one of our
key assets, although our immediate focus remains on obtaining funding and
bringing the NGPT field into commercial production. Further, we believe in due
course the reserves for the KNG Field can be increased since no reserves have
been attributed at this stage to the deeper, Devonian reservoir, pending further
drilling.  Pending a successful outcome to the application process for the
production license at the KNG Field, our next steps, subject to necessary
funding, will be its further appraisal, a revised assessment under SPE standards
by Miller & Lents, and bringing the field on-stream in due course".



Enquiries:

Timan Oil & Gas plc
Alexander Kapalin, Chief Executive Officer
David Herbert, Chairman
+44 (0) 20 7661 9315

Strand Partners Limited
Rory Murphy
Braden Saunders
+ 44 (0) 20 7409 3494

Merlin
David Simonson
+ 44 (0)7831 347222
Leonid Fink
Anastasia Ivanova
+ 44 (0) 20 7653 6620



Technical Review

The technical information and opinions contained in this announcement have been
reviewed by Alexander Petukhov, the Company's Deputy General Manager of LLC
Neftegazopromyslovye Teckhnologii who is a qualified mining engineer and
geologist and a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Background:

The KNG Field with its net land position of 180 km2, is located approximately
300 km from the NGPT Field. The majority of crude oil reserves located in the
KNG Field are primarily found at depths of approximately 100-700 m

Glossary:

C1 - Under the Russian Classification system represents the reserves of a
deposit (or of a portion thereof) whose crude oil or natural gas content has
been determined on the basis of commercial flows of crude oil or natural gas
obtained in wells (with some of the wells having been probed by a formation
tester) and positive results of geological and geophysical exploration of non-
probed wells.  C1 Reserves are computed on the basis of results of geological
exploration work and production drilling and must have been studied in
sufficient detail to yield data from which to draw up either a trial industrial
development project in the case of a natural gas field or a technological
development scheme in the case of a crude oil field.

C2 - Under the Russian Classification system these reserves are preliminary
estimated reserves of a deposit calculated on the basis of geological and
geophysical research of unexplored sections of deposits adjoining sections of a
field containing reserves of higher categories and of untested deposits of
explored fields. Category C2 reserves are used to determine the development
potential of a field and to plan geological, exploration and production
activities.

Contingent Resources - Under the SPE standards these are quantities of petroleum
which are estimated, on a given date, to be potentially recoverable from known
accumulations but which are not currently considered to be commercially
recoverable.


SPE - Society of Petroleum Engineers



                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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