Notification of Major Interest in Shares

TR-1: NOTIFICATION OF MAJOR INTEREST IN SHARES

1. Identity of the issuer or the underlying issuer of existing shares to which voting rights are attached:

Afren plc

2 Reason for the notification (please tick the appropriate box or boxes):

An acquisition or disposal of voting rights

 X

An acquisition or disposal of qualifying financial instruments which may result in the acquisition of shares already issued to which voting rights are attached

An acquisition or disposal of instruments with similar economic effect to qualifying financial instruments

An event changing the breakdown of voting rights

Other (please specify):

3. Full name of person(s) subject to the notification obligation:

AXA SA, 25 Avenue Matignon 75008 Paris and its group of companies

4. Full name of shareholder(s) (if different from 3.):

5. Date of the transaction and date on which the threshold is crossed or reached:

01/09/2011

6. Date on which issuer notified:

02/09/2011

7. Threshold(s) that is/are crossed or reached:

10%

8. Notified details:

A: Voting rights attached to shares

Class/type ofshares

Situation previousto the triggeringtransaction

Resulting situation after the triggering transaction

NumberofShares

NumberofVotingRights

Numberof shares

Number of votingrights

% of voting rights

Direct

Direct

Indirect

Direct

Indirect

107,154,430

107,154,430

500,000

500,000

106,209,830

0.05

9.93

B067275

B: Qualifying Financial Instruments

Resulting situation after the triggering transaction

Type of financialinstrument

Expirationdate

Exercise/ConversionPeriod

Number of votingrights that may beacquired if theinstrument isexercised/ converted

% of votingrights

C: Financial Instruments with similar economic effect to Qualifying Financial Instruments

Resulting situation after the triggering transaction

Type of financialinstrument

Exerciseprice

Expirationdate

Exercise/Conversionperiod

Number of votingrights instrumentrefers to

% of voting rights

Nominal

Delta

Total (A+B+C)

Number of voting rights

& of voting rights

106,709,830

9.98%

9. Chain

Name of the Company / Fund Number of Shares % of issued share capital

Alliance Capital Market 2,673,062 0.249919

Indirect

AXA 500,000 0.046748

Direct

AXA Financial, Inc 95,130,366 8.894246

Indirect

 AXA IM Paris 2,399,777 0.224368

Indirect

AXA IM UK 6,006,625 0.561591

Indirect

Total Direct 500,000 0.04675

Total Indirect 106,209,830 9.93012

TOTAL 106,709,830 9.97687

Proxy Voting:

10. Name of the proxy holder:

11. Number of voting rights proxy holder will cease to hold:

12. Date on which proxy holder will cease to hold voting rights:

13. Additional information:

14. Contact name:

 Dimitrios Tsamis

15. Contact telephone number:

 020 7003 2806