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TAG Hires Experts to Head New Location

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TAG Oil Ltd. has announced that unconventional oil and gas specialists Stephen L. Dutnell, P.E. and David B. Cornue P.G., C.H.M.M., have joined the Company's operational team on a long-term contract basis.

Mr. Dutnell and Mr. Cornue will be based in TAG's newly established operational base in the city of Napier on the East Coast of New Zealand's North Island.

TAG is pursuing the major unconventional resource potential that has been demonstrated by TAG's extensive geotechnical studies and the results of the Ngapaeruru-1 well, drilled in spring, which intersected 155 meters of unconventional oil-and-gas pay in the source rock. The addition of Mr. Dutnell and Mr. Cornue to the Company's operational team, and TAG's newly established East Coast office, will facilitate TAG's expanding operational plans and drilling activity, with a goal of establishing the East Coast Basin's first unconventional oil and gas production.

Both Mr. Dutnell and Mr. Cornue are highly respected senior petroleum and environmental experts, with extensive experience in all facets of unconventional oil and gas exploration and development. Their collective 57 years of petroleum experience includes work in many unconventional oil and gas developments in the United States, including the Bakken, Eagle Ford, Marcellus and Utica Shale plays.

David B. Cornue

Mr. Cornue obtained his Master of Science degree from State University of New York, Stony Brook, and his BA in Geology from the University of Maine. He has managed, performed, or contributed to numerous unconventional oil and gas projects, including the preparation of several environmental manuals specific to oil and gas development prepared for the Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, and also the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. Since 2009 he has represented the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York in preparing and presenting their formal commentary regarding new regulations applicable to unconventional development. And in February 2012, he was instrumental in a report prepared for the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development and the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited (GNS Science) for onshore unconventional exploration in New Zealand.

Stephen L. Dutnell

Mr. Dutnell has more than 25 years of petroleum related experience. He obtained his B.S. Petroleum Engineering from the University of Louisiana — Lafayette in 1983, and is a registered Professional Engineer in the states of Oklahoma, New York, and Ohio. Most recently, Mr. Dutnell has provided technical support in the permitting of over 100 vertical and horizontal oil and gas wells drilled or to be drilled in the Utica and Marcellus Shale unconventional plays in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the state of Ohio.