Appointment of Exploration Manager

10 June 2013

UMC Energy PLC

("UMC Energy" or the "Company") (AIM:UEP)

Exploration Manager Appointed

UMC Energy today announces the appointment of Mr Geoff Geary as Exploration Manager responsible for liaison with the Chinese state energy company, CNOOC Ltd ("CNOOC") over all exploration properties in Papua New Guinea ("PNG") held by Gini Energy Ltd ("Gini") which currently includes two onshore and two offshore licence interests. UMC Energy holds a 30% interest in Gini, with CNOOC holding a 70% interest. While CNOOC is the operator of the permit, UMC and its consultants continue to provide key technical support to the joint venture. Under the shareholders agreement between UMC Energy and CNOOC, CNOOC is required to fund all exploration and appraisal expenditure up to commercial development by way of an interest free non-recourse loan to Gini.

Mr Geary has joined UMC Energy to strengthen the technical contribution the Company makes to exploration and will be working with CNOOC and third party consultants engaged by UMC, including 3D-Geo. Mr Geary is a petroleum geologist with 35 years of experience including work in PNG. Having joined Mobil E&P Australia in 1991 he was involved with the giant Jansz gas discovery on the NW shelf of Australia. Since 1997 Geoff has provided services to many companies, including majors such as ExxonMobil and has a strong technical base and extensive experience in prospect generation, sedimentary basin analysis, sequence stratigraphy, chronostratigraphy, structural geology, seismic interpretation, basin modeling and oil and gas field evaluation and development. He also has extensive experience in drilling operations and seismic acquisition both onshore and offshore. In recent years his technical work has been the basis for several farmouts to major upstream companies including Petrobras.

Commenting today Chris Hart, Technical Director said: "As we progress our understanding of the assets held in PNG, the appointment of Geoff Geary is important in UMC's contributions to the next stage of exploration undertaken by CNOOC as the Operator. With the ongoing 2D seismic data reprocessing projects and onshore contingent resources already identified, a number of clear ways forward to progress exploration are apparent. Mr Geary will be the day to day technical point of contact with CNOOC and brings a wealth of experience in petroleum exploration to UMC."

Enquiries:

A presentation by UMC is available at www.umc-energy.com relating to activity at the Company's onshore and offshore petroleum licence interests in Papua New Guinea.

The two onshore licence interests held through the UMC-CNOOC agreement have contingent resources established within one area and sit adjacent to petroleum infrastructure. Additional subsurface activities are presently being planned by the joint venture parties to further reduce uncertainties and develop the identified leads into drillable prospects. This includes selective reprocessing of existing 2D seismic data, new 2D seismic acquisition, detailed reviews of structural modelling and full reservoir engineering reviews for each lead.

Whilst there is a limited seismic grid over the two offshore licence interests held through the UMC-CNOOC agreement, several significant leads have been identified at both the Miocene Carbonate and Top Cretaceous Clastic reservoirs. The seismic grid is presently too sparse across the licence interests to have sufficient confidence in the structural mapping to elevate any of the leads to prospect status. However, several large structures have been mapped with un-risked prospective resource recoverable gas volumes within the Licence interests estimated in the multi Tcf range (an aggregate mean in excess of 10Tcf for the five largest leads). De-risking of these leads will require the acquisition of new seismic data and further interpretation and mapping.