Norstra Closing in on First Drill Location

SOUTHLAKE, Texas, May 20, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NORSTRA ENERGY INC. WWW.NORSTRAENERGY.COM (OTCQB:NORX) ("Norstra" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it is finalizing the evaluation of technical data this week for the first drill location on its South Sun River Prospect. "We received the first seismic interpretation from our geophysical team in Denver and are reviewing the proposed first drill location internally. Once we have evaluated and cross-referenced the proposed location with the actual surface conditions for the drilling operations we will send our surveying team out to stake the location and design the drilling pad," stated Mr. Landry, the CEO & President of Norstra. He further said: "We are also very excited about the quality of the seismic lines."

Central to the viability of Norstra's South Sun River Prospect are the subsurface well logs in the area. Norstra is fortunate to have acreage that is near wells that show the likelihood of commercial oil in the Bakken Oil Formation.

There are three key wells in the immediate vicinity of the first potential Norstra drill site.

1. Krone #3132 drilled by Shell Oil Company. This well demonstrates those essential parameters for a commercial well in the Bakken Oil Formation. There are 24 feet of Bakken middle member present. The middle member of the Bakken Oil Formation produces most of the oil today. The reservoir rock displays a resistivity of 200 ohms suggesting oil and gas is present. The well is less than 2.5 miles away from the first proposed Norstra drill site.
    
2. Steinbach #1 drilled by Arco. The Steinbach # 1 well is around 3,000 feet deeper than the Krone well.  The same reservoir is present, but with deeper buried shales that are heated at a higher temperature resulting in higher resistivities from the generations of oil and gas.  The resistivity here is over 2,000 ohms.  The well is less than 5 miles south of the first proposed drill site.
    
3. Soap Creek Cattle Co. #1331 drilled by Flying J Oil and Gas.  The well is not studied much because it did not penetrate the Bakken Oil Formation. It still has some very significant information for our project. The well stopped in the middle member of the Blackleaf Oil Formation at a depth of 5,480 feet. The Bakken is perhaps 3,000 feet deeper. What is of interest is that in one of the many faults present, there is oil described by the geologist, M.K. Jones. The oil is described from 4,928 to 4,994 feet.  It is in a fractured member of the Taft Hill and the oil has been biodegraded to a heavy crude due to the presence of the water in the fractures. This oil has migrated up the thrust from deeper formations. The source for the oil could be the Bakken Oil Formation. This well is less than 0.75 miles from the proposed first drillsite away. Just the fact that oil is present so close to the Company's proposed well site is extremely significant.

We anticipate that the Bakken Oil Formation on the Norstra drill site may be very similar to the Krone well or Steinbach well. A comparison has been made by the Company's technical consultants between the Krone well and the Balcron 44-24 Vaira well located in the Elm Coulee field of Eastern Montana. Elm Coulee (2007) was the highest producing onshore oil field in the United States, and it is Bakken Oil. This field is expected to exceed 270 million barrels of production from the Bakken Oil Formation at depths of 8,500-10,000 feet. This is exactly the depth range around the proposed Norstra drill location and in the Krone and Steinbach. 

The comparisons do not stop there.

The Vaira 44-24 well has produced over 159,000 barrels of oil and was completed in 1989 when new fracking and drilling technologies were in their infancy. A series of upgrades have been applied to this well but in today's world one would expect this well to exceed these figures. The Company plans to employ all of the latest completion technologies to drill the Norstra #1 well. Production is anyone's estimate but just based upon the increased thickness of the Bakken Oil Formation at the proposed Norstra location, the recoverable reserves may compare favorably to those found in nearby wells.            

Disclaimer

This press release contains "forward-looking statements." Statements in this press release which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future, and specifically references to inferences, estimates, predictions or comparisons made in relation to seismic information, subsurface well logs, or to the Krone, Steinbach, or Soap Creek Cattle Co. wells,  the timing of exploration and drilling work on the South Sun River Prospect, the timing and ability of the Company to drill a well on the property, and the production and reserves of such a well. The reader can identify these forward-looking statements by forward-looking words such as "may," "will," "expect," "potential," "anticipate," "forecast," "believe," "estimate," "project," "plan," "continue" or similar words. The reader should read statements that contain these words carefully because they discuss future expectations, contain projections of future results of operations or of financial condition, or state other forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding potential oil production, revenues, expansion efforts, and future plans and objectives of Norstra Energy Inc. The risk factors listed in our disclosure documents and the cautionary language on the Company's website provide examples of risks, uncertainties and events that may cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations and projections described by Norstra in its forward-looking statements. Actual results relating to, among other things, oil reserves, production, revenues and profitability could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Factors affecting forward-looking statements include: results of exploration activities, ability to secure operations staff and equipment; changes in the operating costs.