Option grant to key employees

The Board of Norse Energy Corp. ASA (“NEC” ticker code OSE – NEC, Oslo, Norway, U.S OTC symbol “NSEEF”) has resolved to grant 2,700,000 stock options to management and key employees under the stock option plans approved by the Annual General Meeting in 2006 and 2008. All options have an exercise price of NOK 3.35 and correspond to the closing price Friday July 24th plus 8%. These options may be exercised from July 24th 2011 through July 24th 2014, conditioned on the employee being employed at that time. The following options were granted to primary insiders of the company; - S. Dennis Holbrook, EVP of Regulatory and Investor Relations, 500,000 options - Steve Novakowski, EVP of Engineering, 100,000 options - Stuart Loewenstein, EVP of Exploration and Development, 100,000 options - Hege Kirkedam, SVP of Special Projects, 100,000 options - Jonas Gamre, Investor Relations, 75,000 options - Alexander Krane, Group Controller, 175,000 options Following this option grant, these primary insiders hold the following number of options; - Holbrook, 500,000 options with strike price NOK 3.35 - Novakowski, 100,000 options with strike price NOK 4.16, 300,000 options with strike price NOK 3.73 and 100,000 options with strike price NOK 3.35 - Loewenstein, 200,000 options with strike price NOK 3.72, 300,000 options with strike price NOK 3.73 and 100,000 options with strike price NOK 3.35 - Kirkedam, 400,000 options with strike price NOK 4.16 and 100,000 options with strike price NOK 3.35 - Gamre, 25,000 options with strike price NOK 3.73 and 75,000 options with strike price NOK 3.35 - Krane, 25,000 options with strike price NOK 3.73 and 175,000 options with strike price NOK 3.35. For further information please contact: Anders Kapstad, CFO Tel: +47 67 51 61 12 Cell: +47 918 17 442 Email: akapstad@norseenergy.com Jonas Gamre, Investor Relations Tel: +47 67 51 61 13 Cell: +47 97 11 82 92 Email: jgamre@norseenergy.com