Development Programme

Pontiac Well, Michigan, USA

As previously announced, the company had reduced its working interest to mitigate the risk of a dry hole and will be offsetting most of the drilling cost against tax. Consequently, the net cash impact on the company will not be material.

East Lake Verret, Louisiana, USA

The focus of the company’s US drilling programme will now switch to the East Lake Verret field in Louisiana.

These show:

• Total Proved Reserves of 2.629 bcf of natural gas and 360,000 bbls of oil

• Proved Reserves are higher than those attributed to the company’s interest on acquisition date (1 March 2008) giving full replacement of 10 months of production

• Over 60% of these proved reserves are currently undeveloped

Over the remainder of this year, the company plans to implement a drilling programme to bring a substantial proportion of these reserves on-stream. Two potential wells have already been identified, each of which will have a better prospect of success than the Pontiac well, and further locations are being evaluated. There are a number of issues to be addressed before drilling can commence, such as completing the unitization process and obtaining partner agreement, particularly as one location will require an existing, producing well to be shut-in. The current target is to increase net production by at least 50% from the existing level of 225 barrels of oil equivalent per day (“boepd”) by the end of 2009.

Australia

Following completion of the PEL 82 3D seismic survey last month, processing of the 3D data is well underway and initial first pass results are expected to be available to the company within the next 3 to 4 weeks.

Production

Orion 36 Well, Michigan, USA

Average gross daily gas production (excluding downtime) was 2.4 mmcfd in March and an estimated 1.95 mmcfd in April 2009. Net production to Meridian in March (based on a Net Revenue Interest of 54.589%) was 39.2 mmcf of gas and 1,111 bbls of liquids. April net production is expected to be 32.0 mmcf of gas and 820 bbls of liquids. This equates to daily production rates of 246 boepd and 205 boepd for March and April 2009 respectively.

Current flowing well-head pressure is in the range of 175–185 psi.

The average price for Orion gas sold in March was $4.33 per mcf, and in April 2009 $4.07 per mcf.

The company’s hedging contracts are expected to produce profits of around $435,000 for the two months in total.

East Lake Verret Field (ELV), Louisiana, USA

ELV has continued its consistently good performance in 2009. Meridian Petroleum’s net production in March 2009 was the highest month this year at 33.6 mmcf of natural gas and 1,387 bbls of oil. April 2009 production has been at similarly good levels and the average daily rate of production over the March-April 2009 was 227 boepd.