Austral Pacific Appoints New Director
December 23 2007 - 6:03PM
PR Newswire (US)
WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Dec. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Austral
Pacific Energy Ltd. (TSX-V: APX; NZSX: APX; AMEX: AEN) announces
the appointment of Peter Hazledine of Wellington, New Zealand, as a
new director of the Company, effective from 1 January 2008. Mr.
Hazledine's addition will strengthen the Board's experience in the
petroleum production sector. The Company's Chairman, Peter Hill,
commented "We are delighted to welcome such an experienced and
knowledgeable industry participant to our Board. We look forward to
the benefit Austral will obtain from his wide range of business,
reservoir and production engineering experience." Peter Hazledine
is a New Zealander with 35 years experience in the international
E&P industry. He spent 30 years with the Royal/Dutch Shell
Group in Africa, the Middle East, New Zealand, Europe, and South
America. He worked initially as a petrophysicist and production
technologist, moving into operations engineering and management
(including 10 years with Shell's New Zealand operating company,
Shell Todd Oil Services, on the Maui and other Taranaki fields). He
left Shell in 2004, to take up a senior management position with
Vector Gas (formerly NGC), the principal gas distributor in the New
Zealand market. He is leaving this role to pursue a more diverse
portfolio of opportunities. Mr. Hazledine has a B.SC (Hons) in
mineral technology from Otago University, in Dunedin, New Zealand.
He is a member of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand. In
line with its standard directors remuneration policy, the Company
will grant Mr. Hazledine 60,000 incentive options upon appointment,
exercisable for 5 years, at market closing price, one-third vesting
on each of 12, 18 and 24 months after issue. About Austral Pacific
Austral Pacific is a listed independent oil and gas exploration and
production company registered in Canada with corporate headquarters
in Wellington, New Zealand. The Company has an interest in thirteen
exploration and production permits totaling over 2.6 million acres
in onshore New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. The Company's primary
assets are the Cheal Field, Kahili Field and Cardiff Field located
onshore in the highly prolific Taranaki Basin on the North Island
of New Zealand. In Papua New Guinea, the Company has an interest in
four onshore blocks. Austral Pacific Energy (NZ) Limited Web site:
http://www.austral-pacific.com/ Email: Phone: Thom Jewell, CEO +64
(4) 495 0880 or Brad Holmes: +1 (713) 304 6062 None of the
Exchanges upon which Austral Pacific's securities trade have
approved or disapproved the contents hereof. This release includes
certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking
statements" within the meaning of applicable legislation. Other
than statements of historical fact, all statements in this release
addressing future production, reserve potential, exploration and
development activities and other contingencies are forward-looking
statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed
in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable
assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future
performance, and actual results or developments may differ
materially from those in the forward-looking statements, due to
factors such as market prices, exploration and development
successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and
general economic, market, political or business conditions. Please
see our public filings at http://www.sedar.com/ and
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm for further
information. DATASOURCE: Austral Pacific Energy Ltd. CONTACT: Thom
Jewell, CEO, +64 (4) 495 0880, or Brad Holmes, +1-713-304-6062,
both of Austral Pacific Energy Limited, Web site:
http://www.austral-pacific.com/
Copyright