Press Releases

Nippon Oil Exploration Entered into
Production Sharing Contract for Offshore Peninsular Malaysia

April 7, 2008

PRESS RELEASE

Nippon Oil Corporation (President: Mr. Shinji Nishio) announced today that Nippon Oil Exploration Limited (President: Mr. Makoto Koseki), its upstream arm and a wholly owned subsidiary, entered into a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) for Block PM308A offshore Peninsular Malaysia through its subsidiary Nippon Oil Exploration (Peninsula Malaysia) Limited to commence exploration activities in this Block.

Block PM308A is an offshore block located in east coast of Peninsular Malaysia and being a prospective block including an oil field which has been discovered but not developed, we expect to discover new oil fields in this block.

Nippon Oil Group is aiming to expand its upstream operations and has been conducting exploration, development and production activities around the world. The Southeast Asian region is one of the important areas for our upstream operations. In Malaysia, we are currently producing gas from Block SK10, offshore Sarawak, as an operator through our Malaysian main office in Miri, Sarawak and also we are participating in Block SK8 as a non-operator. Gas from both Block SK10 and Block SK8 is supplied to liquefaction plant owned by Malaysia LNG Tiga Sdn. Bhd. where we are one of the shareholders. We are also carrying out exploration activities in Block SK333 onshore Sarawak as an operator, of which PSC was entered into last December.

Block PM308A is the fourth project for us in Malaysia and we will further strengthen our activities in Malaysia.

1. Project Summary

• *1. A subsidiary of Swedish Lundin Petroleum
• *2. A wholly owned subsidiary of Petroliam Nasional Berhad
• *3. A wholly owned subsidiary of Japan Energy Corporation

2. Work Program

3. Company Profile of Nippon Oil Exploration (Peninsula Malaysia) Limited