June 9th, 2008

Press Release/Announcement

Oil Shale Exploration Company (“OSEC”), a Utah based private company, announced it has signed an agreement with affiliates of Brazilian integrated energy company Petroleo Brasileiro S/A (“Petrobras”) and Japanese investment and trading company Mitsui & Co Ltd. (“Mitsui”) pursuant to which Petrobras and Mitsui acquired rights to 10%-20% interests each in an oil shale joint venture with OSEC.  Petrobras has also agreed to undertake a technical, economic and environmental commercial feasibility study testing its Petrosix® oil shale processing technology on lands owned or leased by OSEC in Utah.   Mitsui will also provide advice for project management.  The Petrosix® oil shale processing technology is a low emission proprietary retort technology developed by Petrobras and has been successfully used by Petrobras to commercially produce oil from shale for over 30 years at its shale Industrialization Business Unit in São Mateus do Sul, Brazil under strict environmental regulatory legislation.  In 2007, Petrobras’ average oil production from shale was approximately 4,600 barrels per day.    

OSEC is the largest non-governmental holder of oil shale reserves in the State of Utah which includes the only lease of oil shale property in the State of Utah from the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) for oil shale research, development and demonstration (which includes a preexisting mine), a recent purchase of more than 22,000 acres of privately owned oil shale property in the Green River Basin of Utah, and options for other oil shale properties.  These combined oil shale properties provide OSEC with ownership or rights to more than 30,000 acres of oil shale property, which are estimated to contain more than 3-4 billion barrels of shale oil. 

Petrobras is one of the largest energy companies in the world and recently announced one of the world’s biggest discoveries of oil and gas which could contain more than 20 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalents in offshore deepwater wells.  Mitsui is a diversified global trading, investment and service company engaged in global commodities trading and exploring and developing natural resources.  Petrobras and Mitsui have also engaged in a broad range of business globally over the years.

OSEC has been actively pursuing the development of oil shale in Utah since 2005 and with Petrobras’ extensive experience in shale oil production and Mitsui’s broad background in natural resources and commodities, OSEC intends to design, construct and operate the first commercial scale oil shale facility in the U.S.  Oil shale is the largest untapped energy resource in this country containing sufficient reserves to satisfy our present energy needs for the next 100 years.