Mauritania Drilling Update

Roc Oil Company Limited
08 October 2004





Roc Oil Company Limited
8 October 2004



                        ROC OIL COMPANY LIMITED ('ROC') 
                                        
                             STOCK EXCHANGE RELEASE 

                      MAURITANIA OFFSHORE DRILLING UPDATE



ROC advises that the following release was made this afternoon by Woodside
Petroleum Limited:

'Woodside Mauritania Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Woodside Petroleum
Ltd., reports the following activity offshore Mauritania since the last report
issued on 5 October 2004.

                       PSC-B, Block 4 Tiof-3 and Tevet-1

Tiof-3 Appraisal Well
Evaluation of logs acquired while drilling and wireline logging operations,
including fluid sampling and downhole pressure measurements, has established
that the well intersected a gross oil column of 134 metres, containing several
individual sands of variable thickness. The result was in line with pre-drill
expectations.

The current operation is preparing to sidetrack, core and test the well as
planned.

Tevet-1 Exploration well
Evaluation of wireline logs, including fluid sampling and downhole pressure
measurements, has established that the well intersected a gross gas column of
approximately 70m above a gross oil column of approximately 44m.

The well was drilled at a location to intersect the predicted fluid contacts.
The top reservoir, gas-oil contact and oil-water contact were encountered at
their predicted pre-drill depths.

The Tevet-1 discovery is located within tie-back distance to the Chinguetti
field which is currently being developed.

The current operation was plugging and abandoning the well as planned.

The locations of the Chinguetti Oil Field, the Tiof and Banda discoveries and
exploration wells to be drilled early in the 2004-05 drilling campaign are shown
on the attached map.*

Wells are expected to be drilled in three production sharing contract areas
during the campaign.'

Participating Interests in those areas are:

   +-------------------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+
   |               Company               |   PSC-A   |  PSC-B   |  PSC-C2  |
   +-------------------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+
   |Woodside group companies (Operator)  |  53.846%  | 53.846%  |   48%    |
   +-------------------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+
   |Hardman group companies              |   24.3%   |  21.6%   |  28.8%   |
   +-------------------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+
   |BG group companies                   |  13.084%  |  11.63%  |    --    |
   +-------------------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+
   |Premier group companies              |    --     |  9.231%  |    --    |
   +-------------------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+
   |Fusion group companies               |  4. 615%  |    --    |    --    |
   +-------------------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+
   |Roc Oil group companies              |  4.155%   |  3.693%  |   3.2%   |
   +-------------------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+
   |Energy Africa                        |    --     |    --    |   20%    |
   +-------------------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+

John Doran, Chief Executive Officer of ROC commented that:

'ROC considers this to be an excellent start to the Mauritanian drilling
campaign. However, the Company recognises that it is easy to be encouraged
whenever you encounter thick gross hydrocarbon columns. Until the Joint Venture
has finalised its evaluation of net oil pay in the Tiof-3 and Tevet-1 wells and
acquired more subsurface data from both fields, it would be premature to draw
any commercial conclusions.'

*Map attached to the copy of this release on ROC's website 
(http://www.rocoil.com.au/Pages/ASX_Releases/asx-releases.html)



Bruce Clement                           For further information please contact:
Chief Operating Officer                                        Dr John Doran on
                                                           Tel: [phone]
                                                           Fax: [phone]
                                                   E-mail: [e-mail]
                                                        Or visit ROC's website:
                                                              www.rocoil.com.au


                                                                   Dr Kevin Hird
                                            General Manager Business Development
                                                       Tel:  [phone]
                                                       Fax:  [phone]
                                                     Email:  [e-mail]
                                                                                
                                                   Ann-Marie Wilson/Nick Lambert
                                            Bell Pottinger Corporate & Financial
                                                       Tel:  [phone]





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