2009-08-18-2008-02-01-2008-02-01

Acquired 47% WI in 30-year, 1.35-million-acre Budong-Budong PSC onshore West Sulawesi.

Harvest Natural Resources Inc., Houston, (NYSE: HNR) has acquired a 47% interest in the 30-year, 1.35-million-acre Budong-Budong production-sharing contract onshore West Sulawesi, Indonesia, from Tately Budong-Budong NV, a subsidiary of Malaysia-based Pexco NV. During the first three-year exploration phase beginning in January, Harvest and Tately expect to acquire, process and interpret approximately 500 kilometers of 2-D seismic and drill two exploration wells. The program will cost approximately US$22 million, of which Harvest will fund the first US$17.2 million plus its pro rata share of subsequent costs. Tately will be operator through the exploration phase, and Harvest can assume operatorship upon approval of a plan of development for any commercial discovery. Harvest president and chief executive James A. Edmiston says, "Budong-Budong provides Harvest with exposure to significant resource potential in a basin with a demonstrated active petroleum system and abundant oil and gas seeps. Recently completed multi-client seismic surveys by a number of global integrated companies have improved the understanding of the geology and enhanced the prospectivity of the West Sulawesi foldbelt and by analogy, the sparsely explored onshore area of the foldbelt." He adds the contract and the company's recent entry into offshore Gabon are ideal complements to its lower-risk Venezuelan development opportunities. The Budong-Budong contract contains Indonesian frontier terms with a net after-tax production-sharing split of 35% contractor for oil and 40% contractor for gas.