Field season exploration operations have been almost completed on Petro Matad Ltd.'s Blocks IV and V Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) in central Mongolia, which provided the first documentation of live oil and active oil migration in central Mongolia.

Blocks IV and V consist of a linked system of Jurassic through Cretaceous rift basins that contain the same lacustrine and deltaic source, seal and reservoir sequences that produce oil in similar basins throughout Central and Northeast Asia. The Block IV and V rift basins are located beneath the modern "Valley of the Lakes," where Cenozoic strike-slip faulting and local contractional folding have enhanced the trap potential compared with the producing basins of eastern Mongolia.

This year’s exploration program documented thick, rich-oil shale source rock throughout Blocks IV & V. The company was able to identify multiple anticline, fault, and unconformity trap leads.

Currently, a second, 1,600-m-deep (5,280-ft) stratigraphic core hole is being drilled by Major Drilling in the Biger Basin in Block IV. Ongoing interpretation of seismic and other work will continue over winter with further 2D seismic planned in 2012. Exploration drilling in 2012 is subject to the results of the seismic studies and budget approval