Royale Awarded Alaska Acreage

Royale announced that it was selected by the State of Alaska as a winning bidder on acreage in the North Slope Area wide lease sale. The position secures a liquids rich shale known to have sourced Prudhoe bay and Kuparuk River oil fields. The primary targets of this acquisition are the Shublik, Kingak and HRZ shale formations at depths ranging between 7,000 and 10,000 feet.

Royale's VP-Exploration, Mohamed Abdel-Rahman started his petroleum geology career with Shell Oil, Houston TX, after receiving his doctorate from the University of Sheffield in the UK. In 1982 he was recruited by Standard Oil of Ohio (SOHIO) the majority owner of the Prudhoe Bay Field to work as Alaska Area Geologist, and later promoted to District Geologist, responsible for technical evaluations of Alaska Exploration activities. He carried out extensive geochemical studies on the correlation of Alaska crude oils to the various source rocks in the area. Since joining Royale Energy 5 years ago he has developed an interest in going back to Alaska to facilitate the company's evaluation and access to this region.

"While we continue to focus on Natural Gas production in our core area," said Stephen Hosmer, the company's Co-CEO. "This is an exciting opportunity to add oil to Royale's future mix. Over the last several years, exploration technology has increased the importance of Oil shales to America's energy resources. Royale will now participate in this important new frontier.

"With the ongoing development of infrastructure in the exploration friendly state of Alaska, and the availability of spare capacity in the Trans-Alaska pipeline, timing was right for this strategic move. Further details and a plan for development will be provided in future updates."


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