RIFT OIL PLC
PLACING AND ADMISSION TO AIM


Rift Oil plc ("Rift" or "the Company") has raised 2.3 million before expenses,
through a private placing of 24,080,000 new Ordinary Shares and a placing on
admission to the AIM Market ("AIM") of 22,200,000 new Ordinary Shares, both at
0.05 per share, giving the Company a market capitalisation at the placing price
of 17.3 million. The shares will begin trading on AIM today (19 April 2006).
Insinger de Beaufort is the Nominated Adviser and Broker to the Placing.

Rift was established in November 2004 to acquire a 65% interest in an oil and
gas exploration licence, the petroleum prospecting licence number 235 ("PPL 235
Licence"), in western Papua New Guinea. It acquired this interest in December
2004 through its subsidiary Foreland Oil Limited ("Foreland Oil"), in return for
a commitment to spend US$6 million (approximately 3.2 million) on the
exploration and development of PPL 235. The remaining 35% interest in the PPL
235 Licence is held by Trans-Orient Petroleum (PNG) Limited ("TOPPNG"), a wholly
owned subsidiary of Austral Pacific Energy Ltd ("Austral"), a Yukon
incorporated, oil exploration company operating in New Zealand whose shares are
publicly traded in the United States of America, Canada and New Zealand.

In January 2005, the Company and Austral entered into a joint venture operating
agreement to constitute the joint venture between the Company and Austral (the "
Joint Venture") in relation to the exploration activities to be undertaken
within PPL 235. These include a commitment to drill one exploration well, which
has already commenced as set out below.

Between December 2004 and March 2005, the Company raised a total of 4,505,000
at 0.25 per share from a range of private investors pursuant to an offer for
subscription to enable it to meet its initial obligations in relation to PPL
235, and as general working capital. On 10 April 2006 the Company raised an
additional aggregate sum of 1,204,000 by way of a private placing also at 0.05
per share.

The Joint Venture experienced difficulties in securing an appropriate rig in
order to begin the proposed drilling program on PPL 235. This was due to the
current high demand worldwide for the hire of drilling rigs. This led to the
decision by the Joint Venture, in late July 2005, to purchase the Coral Sea-1
Rig, a heli-transportable, free standing double for the purposes of the Joint
Venture.

PPL 235 covers a total area of approximately 2,910 sq km and lies within the
Foreland Basin, an area southwest of the Papua New Guinea highlands
approximately 500 km west from the capital, Port Moresby. The Company has chosen
the Douglas Prospect and the Puk Puk-1 (previously known as 'Kamu') Prospect
("the Prospects") as the initial targets on PPL 235.

Following extensive commissioning work, drilling on the Douglas Prospect, the
first prospect on PPL 235, commenced on 4 April 2006. The Company expects to
reach the planned total depth of around 2,000m after approximately 20 days of
drilling. This will be followed by a 4 day wireline logging program to determine
what further testwork may be required. Further analysis and interpretation of
the results will be necessary during early May before an announcement can be
made. The Company will then decide whether the results are sufficiently
encouraging to either:

(i) flow test the well;

(ii) drill further appraisal well(s);

(iii) shoot more seismic over the field; or

(iv) drill the Puk Puk-1 Prospect, also on PPL 235.

Rift has lodged an application, together with Austral, for a further PPL (APPL
261) covering an area of some 3,958 sq km immediately north of PPL 235. This
application is in the name of Foreland Oil (for and on behalf of Rift) as to
50%, and TOPPNG (for and on behalf of Austral) as to 50%.

Good thought, TM. A bit of share price volatility is normal. Like Mitzy says, buy on weakness.

Estimations of between 20-30 mmbrls of condensate plus several billion cu of gas being put forward but I reckon there could be a lot more overall.
Too cheap.

Appears to be heading in the right direction again.

VERY interesting,up as much as the spread 15%,hope it explodes north the way it did south.

Keaydian, Capetown, one has to hope that today's movement is based on news as otherwise I think it might be a bit soon to be talking about a SP revival.

Lets hope so news must be on its way,and those in the THINK THEY KNOW are possibly buying

200K shares traded so far this a.m. - it's hardly what you'd call high volume.

I think the prospects are good for this stock, but am not convinced that the race is yet underway.

dont you think its interesting it has gone up on such low volume whilst i do acknowledge that it does not take much for the sp to move either way on even small trades

Capetown, I'm not best placed to judge as I don't have L2, but I suspect that this could be profiteering by the market maker, given that there is apparently no news.

I'd love to think that there's some piece of info out there that is about to be made known to the world, but on a total turnover of around 31,000 worth of shares so far today, I don't think that's very likely. At best this could be a late reaction to the news of a couple of weeks ago.

Going up.

And long may it continue.

Nudging up again nicely the last couple of days - got a little way to go to recover the 6.1p I paid for it, but at least things are moving in the right direction, gradually, sort of.

I think a bit more confidence is possibly coming back to the market in general - hope it's justified by a hydrocarbon hit at Douglas-1!

Wonder how far we are away from geting some figures from the renting of the rig ?

You'll probably have to wait for the next set of results, if at all - I find it unlikely they'll make a big deal out of the info. Just my (bearish) opinion . . . .

Nice move on the SP so far today:

RIFT Bid: 4.75p Offer: 5.75p Change: 0.625

looking good for 6p.

I love the stock market !!!

Seen the SOLA thread ??

I'll stick with Rift thank you very much.

Well I have to agree that RIFT could do us all proud. :o)

Not complaining,but why has this gone up today on no news?,long may it continue