Sterling Awarded New Licence in UK 27th Offshore Licencing Round

Sterling Resources Ltd. (“Sterling” or the “Company”) announces that it has been successful in the UK 27th Offshore Licencing Round awards (second tranche), which were recently announced by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

Sterling has been informed by DECC of the successful award of a licence covering Blocks 42/2(split), 42/3(split), 42/4, 42/5 & 36/30, which are located approximately 25 kilometres north of the Breagh gas field. Sterling Resources will be the operator of the licence with a 100 percent working interest. Work commitments for this traditional licence award include obtaining and reprocessing 2D seismic data and drilling a firm well within the traditional 4-year licence period.

“We have continued investigating further Carboniferous prospects in the area near to our Breagh gas field based on Sterling’s database of 2D seismic data over all of these newly licenced blocks and in particular a re-interpreted 3D seismic survey over two of the blocks awarded in this round that was acquired by Sterling in 2010,” stated David Findlater, Sterling’s Vice-President of Exploration. “In addition to several Carboniferous prospects, we have identified an exciting Permian reef play that covers several of the blocks, which we believe has a significant potential resources possibility. We look forward to kicking-off our farm-out at PROSPEX 2013 sponsored by the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB) and the UK licencing authority DECC in early December in London,” added Mr. Findlater.

“Sterling is extremely pleased with this award, which provides an opportunity to explore both more traditional and new plays close to our existing Breagh infrastructure,” stated Jake Ulrich, Sterling’s Interim CEO. “This fits very well into our strategy to build-up our North Sea portfolio around our existing acreage and infrastructure,” added Mr. Ulrich.