AFR.L Regulatory News (AFR)

21 September 2010

Afren plc (AFR LN)

General Meeting - Chairman's statement

London, 21 September 2010 - At today's General Meeting the Chairman, Egbert Imomoh, opened the meeting with the following statement:

When Afren was formed and first listed in 2005, the vision was, and still is, to build a leading pan African independent Exploration and Production Company of scale. We identified our key priority at an early stage to establish a cash generative platform of reserves and production, upon which we could continue to build and grow. We are achieving this, with production ahead of pre-start up expectations on the Okoro field in Nigeria and the ongoing development of the Ebok field offshore south east Nigeria. During the first half of the year we reported net working interest production of 20,397 boepd and we are expecting an average daily production of 55,000 boepd for the full year 2011. This production growth has been accompanied by profitability. We recently reported a half yearly 2010 profit after tax of US$50.7 million, from revenues of US$214.8 million.

Taking into account the operational and financial profile of the Group today, we now feel it is appropriate to further build the exploration opportunity set within the portfolio. Our growing West African production base can now support a high impact exploration programme. The Black Marlin acquisition opens up a new and exciting core area for us. The Black Marlin team has assembled a high quality exploration inventory, with twelve assets located in Kenya, Madagascar, the Seychelles and Ethiopia. Encouragingly there are proven working hydrocarbon systems in each of the basins, which are characteristically under explored and have the potential to yield large scale discoveries. It is estimated that Black Marlin will increase the Company's net prospective resource base by 1.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent, with six high impact exploration wells expected to be drilled through to 2012.

East Africa is one of the few remaining true exploration frontiers. In comparison to West and North Africa, where around 14,600 and 19,000 wells have been drilled to date respectively, only around 480 wells have been drilled in East Africa. However, even this modest level of drilling activity has delivered substantial hydrocarbon occurrences in Uganda, Sudan and Madagascar in particular. The remaining potential of the region is tremendous, and continues to attract the interest of a wide range of companies including the Majors, large independents, NOC's and E&P's alike. As the corporate landscape in East Africa further develops and evolves, with competition for assets ever increasing, we feel that Black Marlin provides us with a position of scale in the region, and a unique opportunity for Afren to participate in multiple, potentially high impact exploration opportunities.

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