Exercise of warrants

Kea Petroleum plc

("Kea" or the "Group")

Exercise of warrants

A total of £3.6 million raised by warrants

A committee of the Board of Kea Petroleum plc (AIM:KEA) met on 02 October 2012 and approved the exercise of 22,332,500 million warrants at 8p into new ordinary shares in Kea. The new ordinary shares will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares and application has been made for the admission of the newly issued shares to trading on AIM which is expected to commence at 8.00 a.m. on 10 October 2012.

Following the exercise of these warrants, the issued share capital of the Group will be 548,067,500 ordinary shares.

A total of 75,980,625 warrants at 8p were issued in November 2009 and over the intervening period 44,677,500 have been exercised, including 38,712,500 in the last month, raising a total of £3,574,200 for Kea.

Concert Party

At the time of the Company's admission to trading on AIM, a concert party existed in Kea shares of which the details were disclosed in the AIM admission document ("Admission Document"). The concert party at the time of admission represented 57.7% of the issued share capital in addition to having a total of 83,537,500 warrants and share options that, if exercised, would increase the concert party's holding to 60.9% of the enlarged issued share capital (at the time of admission) assuming no non concert party member exercised their warrants or share options.

Following the exercise of these warrants, the position of the concert party has now fallen to 47.2% of the Company's issued share capital. A total of 72,320,000 warrants disclosed in the Admission Document have now been exercised or have lapsed including all of those relating to the concert party, leaving 3,660,625 outstanding. Any exercise by the concert party of share options that were disclosed in the Admission Document will not result in an obligation on the part of the concert party under Rule 9 of the City Code to make a general offer, in cash, to the shareholders of Kea to acquire the balance of the ordinary shares in issue.

To learn more about Kea Petroleum, visit: www.keapetroleum.com or contact:

Notes to Editors:

Kea Petroleum is an AIM listed oil and gas exploration company with interests in four petroleum exploration permits in the Taranaki Basin of New Zealand. Kea listed on the London AIM market in February 2010.