Received Regulatory Approval for the Sale of Norse Pipeline

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Norse Energy Corp. ASA (“NEC” ticker Oslo Stock Exchange, Norway; “NSEEY” ticker U.S. OTC) is pleased to announce that it has received the necessary regulatory approval for the sale of the Company's Norse Pipeline, LLC (“Norse Pipeline”) and Nornew Energy Supply, Inc. (“NES”) to Appalachian Transportation and Marketing LLC (“Appalachian”) through its subsidiary Norse Energy Holdings, Inc

The Agreements, executed in February, were expressly subject to approval of the transfer of Norse Pipeline and NES to Appalachian by the New York Public Service Commission which was received on May 19.  Although regulatory approval for the sale of Mid American Natural Resources was not needed, that closing was also awaiting the regulatory approval. The sales price of USD 20.7 million will be applied towards repayment of long term debt of USD 4.2 million associated with Norse Pipeline.  The net cash to Company will be USD 16.5, before transactions' expenses, will be used for general corporate purposes. The closing is anticipated to take place on or about May 31, 2011.

“These midstream assets are no longer core to our exploration and production activities in central New York,” comments Norse Energy CEO Mark Dice.  “This is part of our strategy to divest non-core assets on favorable terms and reallocate corporate resources toward our core competencies in exploration and production,” concludes Dice. The CEO of Appalachian is Oivind Risberg, former Norse Energy CEO.

Norse Energy is a Herkimer company with significant upside the Marcellus and Utica Shales. At year end 2010 the Company had  third party certified total contingent resources of ~4 TCF (~713 MMBOE) of which approximately 3.7 Tcf are in the Marcellus and Utica. The Company has a significant land position of 180,000 net acres in New York State..

For further information, please contact:

Richard Boughrum, Chief Financial Officer
Cell: +1 714 520 1702

rboughrum@norseenergy.com 

S. Dennis Holbrook, Executive Vice President
Cell: +1 716 713 2489

dholbrook@norseenergy.com