The Blocks 28 & 29/03 PSC lies approximately 300 kilometres offshore southern Vietnam, adjacent to the international maritime boundary with Indonesia, and covers an area of 12,989 square kilometres in water depths generally shallower than 50m. The PSC area equates to approximately 564 Gulf of Mexico blocks or 54 UK Central North Sea blocks and is one of the largest PSC areas in Vietnam.

The PSC was signed on a 100% equity basis by Mitra on the 9th October 2007 (becoming effective on 22nd October 2007) and benefits from the application of Vietnamese “Incentive Terms”. These are designed to facilitate the commercial exploitation of smaller discoveries that may be uneconomic under standard PSC terms.

The principal hydrocarbon play is contained within a Tertiary aged rift basin lying west of the Nam Con Son Basin. The basin (which is almost entirely contained within the PSC area) is believed to be one of the few remaining undrilled Sunda Rifts and is expected to be geologically analogous to parts of the Nam Con Son, Malay and West Natuna Basins.

Structuration of Miocene aged reservoir section by both extensional rifting and oblique basin inversion gives rise to the primary exploration targets in the basin, at target depths lying predominantly between 1,500 and 2,000 metres sub-sea. The play is characterised as low to moderate risk and reward, with the majority of individual prospect resource estimates lying in the 30 -100 mmbo range.

The initial PSC work programme consisted of re-processing approximately 7,000 line kilometres of existing 2D seismic data, followed by acquisition and processing of an additional 3,052 line kilometres of 2D seismic data in 2008 all of which has now been completed. In addition, Mitra acquired 1,532 square kilometres of full-fold, high quality 3D seismic data between late September and early November 2008. Following analysis of the new seismic data, two exploration wells will be drilled in 2010, prior to the third anniversary of the PSC.

In January 2009, Mitra’s working interest in the PSC reduced to 50% with BHP Billiton acquiring a 50% working interest and operatorship by way of a farm-in agreement. Vietnamese Governmental approval of the farm-in was granted on 19th August 2009.

Based on the 2D seismic mapping, independent auditor, RISC, has given a net mean estimate (Pmean) of 710 mmbo and a net high estimate (P10) of 1,585 mmbo of Prospective Resource for 18 mapped prospects.