Austral Pacific Appoints New Director

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[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n\n\nWELLINGTON, New Zealand, Dec. 23 /CNW/ -- Austral Pacific Energy Ltd.\n(TSX-V: APX; NZSX: APX; AMEX: AEN) announces the appointment of Peter\nHazledine of Wellington, New Zealand, as a new director of the Company,\neffective from 1 January 2008.\n\n\nMr. Hazledine's addition will strengthen the Board's experience in the\npetroleum production sector. The Company's Chairman, Peter Hill, commented "We\nare delighted to welcome such an experienced and knowledgeable industry\nparticipant to our Board. We look forward to the benefit Austral will obtain\nfrom his wide range of business, reservoir and production engineering\nexperience."\n\n\nPeter Hazledine is a New Zealander with 35 years experience in the\ninternational E&P industry. He spent 30 years with the Royal/Dutch Shell Group\nin Africa, the Middle East, New Zealand, Europe, and South America. He worked\ninitially as a petrophysicist and production technologist, moving into\noperations engineering and management (including 10 years with Shell's New\nZealand operating company, Shell Todd Oil Services, on the Maui and other\nTaranaki fields). He left Shell in 2004, to take up a senior management\nposition with Vector Gas (formerly NGC), the principal gas distributor in the\nNew Zealand market. He is leaving this role to pursue a more diverse portfolio\nof opportunities. Mr. Hazledine has a B.SC (Hons) in mineral technology from\nOtago University, in Dunedin, New Zealand. He is a member of the Institute of\nDirectors in New Zealand.\n\n\nIn line with its standard directors remuneration policy, the Company will\ngrant Mr. Hazledine 60,000 incentive options upon appointment, exercisable for\n5 years, at market closing price, one-third vesting on each of 12, 18 and 24\nmonths after issue.\n\n\nAbout Austral Pacific\n\n\nAustral Pacific is a listed independent oil and gas exploration and\nproduction company registered in Canada with corporate headquarters in\nWellington, New Zealand. The Company has an interest in thirteen exploration\nand production permits totaling over 2.6 million acres in onshore New Zealand\nand Papua New Guinea. The Company's primary assets are the Cheal Field, Kahili\nField and Cardiff Field located onshore in the highly prolific Taranaki Basin\non the North Island of New Zealand. In Papua New Guinea, the Company has an\ninterest in four...

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