Austral Pacific Appoints New Director
Austral Pacific Appoints New Director
Wellington, New Zealand - 24 December 2007 - Austral Pacific Energy Ltd.
(TSX-V: APX; NZSX: APX; AMEX: AEN)
Austral Pacific announces the appointment of Peter Hazledine of
Wellington, New Zealand, as a new director of the Company, effective from 1
January 2008.
Mr. Hazledine?s addition
will strengthen the Board?s experience in the petroleum production sector. The
Company?s Chairman, Peter Hill, commented ?We are delighted to welcome such an
experienced and knowledgeable industry participant to our Board. We look
forward to the benefit Austral will obtain from his wide range of business,
reservoir and production engineering experience.?
Mr. Hazledine is a New
Zealander with 35 years experience in the international E&P industry. He
spent 30 years with the Royal/Dutch Shell Group in Africa, the Middle East, New
Zealand, Europe, and South America. He worked initially as a petrophysicist and
production technologist, moving into operations engineering and management
(including 10 years with Shell?s New Zealand operating company, Shell Todd Oil
Services, on the Maui and other Taranaki fields). He left Shell in 2004, to
take up a senior management position with Vector Gas (formerly NGC), the
principal gas distributor in the New Zealand market. He is leaving this role to
pursue a more diverse portfolio of opportunities. Mr. Hazledine has a B.SC
(Hons) in mineral technology from Otago University, in Dunedin, New Zealand. He
is a member of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand.
In line with its standard
directors remuneration policy, the Company will grant Mr. Hazledine 60,000
incentive options upon appointment, exercisable for 5 years, at market closing
price, one-third vesting on each of 12, 18 and 24 months after issue.
About Austral Pacific
Austral Pacific is a
listed independent oil and gas exploration and production company registered in
Canada with corporate headquarters in Wellington, New Zealand. The Company has
an interest in thirteen exploration and production permits totalling over 2.6
million acres in onshore New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. The Company's
primary assets are the Cheal Field, Kahili Field and Cardiff Field located
onshore in the highly prolific Taranaki Basin on the North Island of New
Zealand. In Papua New Guinea, the Company has an interest in four onshore
blocks.
Austral Pacific Energy
(NZ) Limited
Phone: Thom Jewell, CEO +64 (4) 495 0880 or Brad Holmes: +1 (713) 304 6062
CONTACT: Investor
Relations:
Tel: +1 561 837 8057 ext 2
Website: http://www.austral-pacific.com
Email: ir@austral-pacific.com
None of the Exchanges upon which Austral Pacific's securities trade have
approved or disapproved the contents hereof. This release includes certain
statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements"
within the meaning of applicable legislation. Other than statements of
historical fact, all statements in this release addressing future production,
reserve potential, exploration and development activities and other
contingencies are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the
expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable
assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and
actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the
forward-looking statements, due to factors such as market prices, exploration
and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and
general economic, market, political or business conditions. Please see our
public filings at www.sedar.com and www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm
for further information..