Elf Aquitaine signed an agreement on November 4, to sell its oil and gas subsidiary in Ecuador, Elf Hydrocarbures Equateur, to Vintage Petroleum, Inc. for cash and Vintage common stock. The transaction is subject to approval by the Ecuadorian authorities.

Elf Hydrocarbures Equateur holds interests in three exploration and production licenses (Blocks 14, 17 and the Shiripuno area). It is the operator on these blocks and presently produces around 3,000 barrels of oil a day.

The sale is in line with Elf's exploration and production asset management policy carried out over the past few years in order to increase shareholder value. Assets are disposed of when their sale allows for obtaining this result without jeopardizing the Exploration-Production Division's industrial and financial objectives.

Elf's Tunisian and Italian upstream subsidiaries were recently disposed of in this context along with more than 60 assets in several other subsidiaries.

As a result, the number of fields has been decreased significantly over the past few years while production has increased during the same period, thus contributing to the reduction of unit operational costs in a very positive manner.

Thomas Saunders (33.1) 47.44.42.30
Catherine Durand (33.1) 47.44.37.76

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