Perth, Sept 9, 2008 (ABN Newswire) - Empire Oil & Gas (ASX:EGO)(PINK:EOLGF) and its wholly owned subsidiary, Rough Range Oil Pty Ltd, is pleased to provide a progress report of drilling Lake MacLeod-1 located in the Onshore Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia.

The Lake MacLeod-1 re-engineered wellsite and access road is complete. This has consisted of substantial earthworks including the installation of the cellar, sump, water supply and the access road and turnarounds for road trains.

Empire has mobilised its drilling camp to site and will have all of the accommodation on site by Wednesday 10 September 2008. DCA Rig 7 is now to be mobilised onto this Lake MacLeod-1 wellsite commencing Thursday 11 September 2008. Drilling will commence on rig up.

The Lake MacLeod-1 well is a 1,000 metre well to evaluate a large anticlinal feature where Devonian aged carbonate sediments drape over an older aged fault block. This structure exhibits the necessary pre-requisites of structural timing for oil generation and entrapment.
Estimated potential recoverable oil reserves for the larger Lake MacLeod structure within both EP 439 and EP 461, if filled to its maximum spill point, are in the order of 150 million barrels.

Potential recoverable oil reserves within the Lake MacLeod structure within EP 461 are more conservatively calculated using a 5,000 hectare closure at the top Nannyarra Sandstone to be in the order of 30 million barrels.

The participants in the EP 439 and EP 461 Joint Venture are:

Rough Range Oil Pty Ltd (Operator) 30.35%
Longreach Oil Limited 9.352%
Indigo Oil Pty Ltd 4.676%
Falcore Pty Ltd 2.596%
Vigilant Oil Pty Ltd 0.52%
Jurassica Oil & Gas Plc 35%
Black Fire Energy Limited 7.5%
DVM International Limited 10%