Proposed Joint Venture

Anglo Pacific Group PLC 11 January 2006 January 11, 2006 Anglo Pacific Group PLC Anglo Pacific Announces Proposed Joint Venture Anglo Pacific Group ('Anglo Pacific') is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with West Hawk Development Corp. ('West Hawk'), (WHD-TSX.V) The intent of the MOU is to form a working relationship between the two companies focusing on the joint exploration and development of Anglo Pacific's and West Hawk's Upper and Lower Discovery coal seams located at the Groundhog coal field in British Columbia, Canada. The two properties are contiguous and are underlain by dominantly shale and sandstone beds of the Upper Jurassic Currier Formation which contain the Upper and Lower Discovery coal seams. The coal seams outcrop on both properties and are believed to be stratigraphically and structurally related according to the results of previous drilling. In total, twenty five individual seams have been documented in the area grading from anthracite to meta-anthracite in quality. The seams on West Hawk's Lower Discovery and Evans Creek properties alone comprise an inferred resource of 48,000,000 tonnes, having been outlined in a recently completed National Instrument 43-101 report produced by Don Wedman P.Eng.. Additional resources are expected to be outlined by exploration work on both Anglo Pacific's Upper Discovery and West Hawk's Lower Discovery Creek properties. Dr. Mark Hart the COO of West Hawk explained 'the concept of the joint venture plan is to gain economies of scale by increasing the size of the project and therefore reducing exploration, development and mining costs'. Dr. Hart has just recently joined West Hawk and is considered an expert in Coal Mining having graduated with a PhD from the Colorado School of Mines and worked as a senior executive for several senior mining and energy companies. It is proposed that both Anglo Pacific and West Hawk will each be initially contributing C$600,000 to the joint operating company and implementing a C$1,200,000 exploration program to begin this spring designed to advance the current inferred resources at the Upper and Lower Discovery properties to the measured and indicated category. As part of the working relationship Anglo Pacific has agreed to subscribe C$600,000 to a private placement in West Hawk consisting of 1.5 million units at a price of C$0.40 per unit. Each unit will consist of 1 common share and one half of one share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one share of West Hawk at a price of C$0.60 for a period of 2 years. Once the financing is completed Anglo Pacific will be the beneficial owner of 3.9 million common shares of West Hawk equivalent to approximately 13.% of the issued and outstanding share capital. West Hawk is a mineral exploration and development company committed to building shareholder value through the development of its four coal properties in Northern British Columbia including plans to build an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) electrical power plant and a coal-to-liquids plant (diesel & naphtha) at the company's Australian Creek project 28 km South of Quesnel B.C. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange