Melbana Energy Limited (ASX: MAY) (Melbana or Company) is pleased to announce the completion of an extensive review of its licence areas WA-544-P and NT/P87 (Melbana 100%) and advises that it has identified a carbonate buildup within the licence areas.

The Company is calling the prospect Hudson and has produced a maiden resource estimate for it using the probabilistic method. Isolated carbonate build ups host some of the world's largest oil reservoirs, but it is an untested play type in Australia.

The first exploration well to do so, designated Beehive-1, will drill the Beehive prospect in the adjacent licence area WA-488-P as early as 2024. Melbana identified the Beehive prospect and subsequently sold WA-488-P to a US oil major in 2021. That company is making a country entry to drill the Beehive prospect. Melbana has no exposure to the cost of that exploration well but has contingent cash and royalty interests, respectively subject to future elections made by the purchaser and production following a successful exploration well

Prospective Resources Cautionary Statement - The estimated quantities of petroleum that may potentially be recovered by the application of a future development project(s) related to undiscovered accumulations. These estimates have both an associated risk of discovery and a risk of development. Future exploration appraisal and evaluation is required to determine the existence of a significant quantity of potentially moveable hydrocarbons.

The licence areas, containing the undeveloped Turtle and Barnett oil discoveries, were granted to Melbana in 2020 under the Australian Government's 2019 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release. They are in shallow water (20 to 40 metres deep) and located about 300 kilometres southwest of Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory.

The Blacktip gas field lies to the northwest and its pipeline transects the northern boundary of NT/P87, allowing potential access to the Darwin LNG facility and/or the east coast gas market. For the past two years Melbana's technical team have reprocessed and reinterpreted the legacy 2D seismic data, which has allowed it to identify a new conceptual target within the Hudson Platform. It is believed that the licence areas are host to an early Paleozoic Carbonate platform sealed by evaporites.

Analogous formations in other parts of the globe are host to some of the largest oil provinces in the world, including the Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan, the world's sixth largest oil field. Other analogues within Australia are seen within the Amadeus and Canning Basins - for example, the Ungani oil and Raphael gas fields. The Company is pleased to announce its initial estimate of the Prospective Resources for the Hudson prospect based on a probabilistic assessment with a 12% estimate for the chance of hydrocarbons:

Melbana intends to farmout some of its 100% interest in the licence areas to fund the acquisition of a 3D seismic survey to further derisk the prospect. A copy of the technical presentation Melbana will use during the farmout process is available on the Company's website

Contact:

Tel: 2 83 23 66 00

Competent Person Statement

The information contained in this announcement relates to Contingent Resources and Prospective Resources for Melbana Energy. This information is based on, and fairly represents, information and supporting documentation compiled by Peter Stickland, one of Melbana's non-executive directors. Mr Stickland B.Sc. (Hons) has over 30 years of relevant experience, is a member of the European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers and the Petroleum and Exploration Society of Australia, and consents to the publication of the resource assessments contained herein. The estimates of Prospective Resources included in the announcement have been prepared in accordance with the definitions and guidelines set forth in the Petroleum Resources Management System ('PRMS') as revised in June 2018 by the Society of Petroleum Engineers. The PRMS defines prospective resources as those quantities of petroleum which are estimated, as of a given date, to be potentially recoverable from undiscovered accumulations.

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