Premier Oil has terminated the discussions with a preferred bidder regarding its intention to dispose of interests in Mauritania.

Since the original announcement of company intention to dispose of its Mauritanian interests, Petronas Australia Pty Limited, a subsidiary of Petrol.iam Nasional Berhad ("Petronas") has declared the purchase of Woodside Energy Ltd's Mauritanian subsidiaries. Petronas will assume the operatorship of the Mauritanian blocks in which Premier holds an interest when that transaction completes, expected in November 2007.

Petronas is a current partner of Premier in the Anoa field in Indonesia and is a former strategic shareholder in Premier.

The company plan to retain our interests in the producing Chinguetti field (8.23%), PSC B (9.23%) containing the Tiof and Tevet discoveries, and PSC A (4.62%) containing the Banda discovery.

Premier's Chief Executive, Simon Lockett, said, "We have decided to terminate the disposal process as we consider the offers received do not fully reflect the value of Premier's Mauritanian interests and at continuing strong commodity prices we can generate better value for shareholders by retaining these assets. To this end we look forward to working with the new operator Petronas to fully exploit the significant potential in Mauritania."