Norse Energy Addresses NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation Job Reductions

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Norse Energy Corp. ASA ("NEC" ticker code OSE - NEC, Oslo, Norway, U.S. OTCQX symbol "NSEEY") and its subsidiaries (“Norse Energy” or “the Company”) advise that outgoing New York Governor Patterson recently announced substantial state government job cuts effective at the end of this calendar year, including ~ 200 positions at the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). 

“The DEC reductions appear to target primarily the Division of Parks & Recreation and fortunately not the Division of Mineral Resources, which oversees drilling,” comments Norse Energy Executive Vice President, Dennis Holbrook.  These reductions are in response to an anticipated budget deficit of between $9 billion and $10 billion in 2011. “Given these economic realities, the opportunity that Marcellus shale drilling presents, should provide strong motivation for moving the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) process forward,” concludes Holbrook.

The DEC continues to work on reducing the processing time for current well drilling permits with the recent introduction of electronic filing.  Earlier this month it reiterated its efforts to complete the SGEIS close to yearend, with permit processing for large volume shale hydro-fracturing in Q1 2011, subject to final review and signoff by the impacted state agencies.  

Norse Energy owns or controls ~130,000 acres in central New York State in a fairway providing potentially stacked targets in the Herkimer sandstone and the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.

For further information, please contact:
Richard Boughrum, Chief Financial Officer
Cell: +1 714 520 1702, Email: rboughrum@norseenergy.com

S. Dennis Holbrook, Executive Vice President

Cell: +1 716 713-2489, Email: dholbrook@norseenergy.com