Great Eastern Energy Corp PLC 05 January 2006 PRESS RELEASE 5 January 2006 GREAT EASTERN ENERGY CORPORATION LTD TO COMMENCE COMMERCIAL DRILLING AND OUTSOURCES WELL DRILLING AND COMPLETION ACTIVITIES TO WORLD'S LEADING SERVICE PROVIDERS Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd ("Great Eastern Energy" or the "Company"), an AIM-listed company (GEEC:LN) incorporated to explore, develop, distribute and market Coal Bed Methane ("CBM") in India, today announced that it will commence commercial drilling of CBM wells in mid-January 2006. Great Eastern Energy joined the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange on 13th December 2005. The Company is also pleased to announce that it has outsourced the commercial drilling, wire line logging & perforation services, cementing & fracturing operations of its commercial CBM wells to three companies with vast experience in CBM projects and technology. The three companies are Mitchell Drilling International Pty Ltd. (Australia), HLS Asia Limited (a collaboration company of Halliburton Energy Services Inc., USA), and BJ Services Company Middle East Limited (a subsidiary of BJ Services Company, USA). With this development, Great Eastern Energy becomes the first company in India to commence commercial drilling of CBM wells in India. The estimated investment outlay for the first 100 wells programme of Great Eastern Energy is 5.75 billion Indian rupees (£73 million) Mr. Y.K. Modi, Chairman and Managing Director, Great Eastern Energy said: "We are delighted to be moving forward with our drilling programme and utilising the expertise and knowledge of these world class service providers in the construction of our CBM wells. Although CBM is a new concept in India I am confident that the Company will increase shareholder value with this exciting drilling programme". For further information, contact: Great Eastern Energy Company Ltd (00 91 124 258 0465) Yogendra Modi - Executive Chairman and Joint Managing Director Prashant Modi - Executive Joint Managing Director Arden Partners Limited (020 7398 1632) Richard Day Citigate Dewe Rogerson (020 7638 9571) Martin Jackson/George Cazenove Notes to editors Great Eastern Energy joined the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange on 13th December 2005. Assets The company has been granted a block of approximately 210 km2 in the Raniganj coalfields of the Damodar Valley in West Bengal for the exploration and production of CBM under a production sharing agreement with the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The block is located approximately 200 km north-west of Kolkata and is located in an industrialised region of Damodar Valley in West Bengal. The region is served by a national highway and mainline railways. The Raniganj coalfield is the largest high grade coalfield in a fault system known as Gondwana Basin. Individual coal seams from this coalfield range in thickness from less than 1 metre to more than 5 meters and reach a cumulative thickness of more than 50 meters. Reserves To date, Great Eastern Energy has drilled three pilot production wells in the Surajnagar area, southwest of Asansol. The three wells were completed successfully, with all wells drilled, cased, cemented, logged, perforated and fractured. From the core well samples Schlumberger has estimated that the total gas-in-place in Great Eastern Energy's licence area is approximately 1.386 tcf. The desorption tests carried out on the pilot wells showed a CBM content range of up to 426 standard cubic feet ("scf") per tonne of coal (with an average around 250 scf per tonne). The development plan for the project involves drilling 100 wells over an estimated four year period. Sales from the original 3 pilot wells are expected to start during the first quarter of 2006. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange