Magellan Petroleum to Repurchase of 17% of its Common Stock from Sopak

Magellan Petroleum

today announced that on January 14, 2013, the Company entered into a Collateral Purchase Agreement with Sopak AG ("Sopak"), a Swiss subsidiary of Glencore International plc.  Under the terms of this agreement, Magellan agreed to purchase from Sopak 9,264,637 shares of Magellan's common stock and a warrant granting Sopak the right to purchase from the Company an additional 4,347,826 shares of common stock.  In exchange for the shares and the warrant, Magellan paid to Sopak $10 million in cash consideration, which the Company funded from its own balance sheet resources.  Excluding the warrant, the shares repurchased from Sopak represent approximately 17% of the Company's shares outstanding immediately prior to the transaction.  As of today, the Company's outstanding shares total 44,642,983. J. Thomas Wilson, President and CEO of Magellan, stated, "This transaction is a significant milestone in our path to deliver value to our shareholders.  We have succeeded in buying back a substantial amount of our own stock at an attractive price.  At the same time, we have eliminated the overhang from the warrant, which could have had a significant dilutive impact on our share value