Cooper Energy buys into Incremental

Cooper Energy has become the major shareholder in Incremental Petroleum, purchasing a share of almost 27 per cent in the company.

More than 50 per cent of Incremental is still held by independent shareholders.

Cooper Energy is keen to ensure that the Directors of Incremental focus on delivering value for all their shareholders.

To do so, Cooper Energy's intention is to place Incremental's Directors under high transparency and performance watch.

Full announcement below:

COOPER ENERGY CONFIRMS SHAREHOLDING IN INCREMENTAL AND WELCOMES NEW SHAREHOLDERS

Cooper Energy Limited (Cooper Energy, ASX: COE) advises that its unconditional offer to purchase all the shares of Incremental Petroleum (Incremental, ASX: IPM) closed at 7pm on Friday 7th November 2008.

Following the close of the offer, Cooper Energy has become Incremental's major shareholder with approximately 27% of the Company (see Figure 1 for distribution of shareholder groups).

Cooper Energy takes this opportunity to welcome to our company those Incremental shareholders who shared the vision of creating Australia's next mid-tier oil and gas company and looks forward to creating shareholder wealth for all Cooper Energy shareholders.

Cooper Energy is now Incremental's major shareholder, and is keen that the Directors of Incremental focus on delivering value for all their shareholders.

As the Incremental Directors have accepted and endorsed KPMG's high share valuation, which formed the basis for their rejection of Cooper's offer, we will be looking to those Directors to deliver that value for their shareholders.

As a result, Cooper Energy's intention is to place Incremental's Directors under high transparency and performance watch.

To remind both our new and existing shareholders, Cooper Energy is in its strongest ever reserves and financial position, with $75 million in cash and cash equivalents at 30 September, and is looking forward to delivering a strong result for the 2007‑2008 financial year and beyond. Our next drilling activity is expected to commence in December 2008 in the Cooper Basin, South Australia with the drilling of two Callawonga Oil Field appraisal/development wells and two exploration wells.

Cooper Energy's international program also continues to mature and we expect further announcements on a number of activities to be made in the near future.

The Board and management of Cooper Energy remains focused on driving value for all our shareholders and believe that the Company is well positioned to deliver this objective with its outstanding portfolio of exploration, development and production assets, strong cash balance and its major shareholding in Incremental.