Venture Production has provided the following pre-close period operational and trading update. Preliminary results for the year ended December 31, 2008 will be released on March 17, 2009.

Average net daily production for 2008 was approximately 45,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day1 ("boepd"), an increase of 9% over 2007. This growth came from a combination of strong underlying reservoir and well performance from our core producing fields, a full year's contribution from the Chiswick gas field which came on stream in 2007 and production from new field developments. This was partially offset by higher than anticipated downtime on the Greater Kittiwake Area ("GKA") and natural decline in our producing fields. Elsewhere in the portfolio Annabel, Saturn and Goosander all continued to outperform expectations with strong individual field performances.

In terms of hydrocarbon split, Venture's southern North Sea (SNS) gas fields contributed 66% of total 2008 UKCS production with the balance coming from Venture's portfolio of central North Sea (CNS) oil fields.

The second half of 2008 was an extremely busy period of field development and drilling activity and these high levels of activity continue into 2009. During this period, Venture brought three new fields on stream; Chestnut, Stamford and Grouse and Venture participated in the drilling or workover of a total of nine wells making us one of the most active development operators in the North Sea. We also successfully drilled a second production well on Chestnut and restored the Mallard field to production in December. A workover conducted on the Ann A-4 production well was unable to return the well to production.

We currently have three gas exploration and appraisal wells drilling in the southern North Sea; Kew (appraisal), Carna (exploration) and Cygnus (appraisal) with results from all three wells expected towards the end of the first quarter.

At December 31, 2008, net proven and probable reserves are estimated to total approximately 214 million barrels of oil equivalent1 ("MMboe"), including the Company's proportionate share of reserves in Trinidad. This represents a 6% increase from end 2007 and this growth is the result of both drilling results and strong production performance leading to organic reserves additions together with the acquisition of reserves during 2008 which combined significantly more than offset production during 2008. As a result, Venture's reserve replacement including acquisitions amounted to 166% of production for 2008 and for the last three years averaged 200%.

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