C.A.T. oil AG, one of the leading providers of oil and gasfield services in Russia and Kazakhstan, through its operating subsidiary CATOBNEFT, received an additional sidetrack drilling order for Fiscal Year 2009 by LUKOIL. The new service assignment is worth about EUR 10 million (assuming a Rouble-to-Euro exchange rate of 48), thereby increasing C.A.T. oil's 2009 order book volume to approx. EUR 198 million.

The sidetrack drilling jobs will be carried out in the Kogalym area and will lead to an allocation of two of C.A.T. oil's sidetrack drilling rigs to LUKOIL's well sites in West Siberia, thereby strengthening C.A.T. oil's presence in this region.

Manfred Kastner, CEO of C.A.T. oil AG, said, "In light of the currently challenging market environment we are proud of having received this additional order by LUKOIL which has been our client for more than 15 years and is Russia's largest oil producer. This contract demonstrates yet again our strong customer relationship, as well as our operating performance. Thanks to our state of the art sidetrack drilling rigs with an average age of less than three years we are able to provide efficient services which are even more important in economically difficult times. We see our Company well prepared to work on our 2009 objective which is to increase our market share in sidetrack drilling in the Russian market to more than 20%."

Over the past few years C.A.T. oil has significantly expanded its sidetrack drilling capacities from two rigs in 2006 to ten in 2007 and 14 by the end of 2008. Sidetrack drilling has been growth driver number one in 2008 and sidetrack drilling job counts went up by 165.7% YoY, making C.A.T. oil the fastest growing company in this business in Russia.

Tags: C.A.T. oil AG, Lukoil