Moscow, July 19, 2005.  Sibneft has begun carrying out geophysical exploration work on the Tumanskiy license block, located in the Anadyr Bay section of the Bearing Sea.  The company plans to collect 3000 kilometers of seismic data at the site. The data will shed light on the geology of subsurface structures previously determined to be promising, thereby helping to design a program of exploration drilling on the field for 2006.

Sibneft-Chukotka received a five-year geological exploration license for the Tumanskiy block in November 2003.  The block covers about 13,000 square kilometers in water that is 25 to 60 meters in depth.  There are five localized structures within the license area, with total geological resources estimated to exceed 1 billion tons of oil equivalent.

Geological work likewise continues at other Sibneft license sites in the Chukotka region. At the Telekaiskoye oil and gas condensate field, testing is underway on a well that, in 2004, produced industrial flows of oil.  Sibneft has also built geological models of the offshore portion of the Anadyr oil & gas basin based on drilling and seismic work carried out in the region, identifying several more promising structures.

Contact:

John Mann

Sibneft

Tel:  +7 (095) 777-3116, 777-3182

Fax: +7 (095) 777-3114

JohnM@sibneft.ru

www.sibneft.com