Madalena Announces Appointment and Grant of Options to New Independent Directors

CALGARY, Alberta, September 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

TSXV Trading Symbol: MVN

OTC Trading Symbol: MDLNF

Madalena Energy Inc. (TSX-V: MVN) and (OTC: MDLNF) (the "Company" or "Madalena") is pleased to announce that Messrs. Douglas E. Brooks and Steven Sharpe, two new independent directors have joined the Madalena board of directors (the "Board"). "This is an exciting time for Madalena following our recent transformational transaction and our transition to a more balanced business strategy," said Raymond Smith, Chairman of the Board. "We are very pleased that Douglas and Steven have agreed to join the Board and feel that Madalena and its shareholders will benefit greatly from the education, experience and skills that these two highly qualified individuals possess." The following is a brief biography of each of these new independent directors.

Douglas Brooks 

Mr. Brooks is an executive with 32 years' experience in the oil and natural gas exploration and producing industry in positions of increasing responsibility, including eleven years at the executive level and seven years as a company President and CEO. In 2012 Mr. Brooks joined Aurora Oil & Gas Ltd. as CEO and member of the board of directors. Aurora was an ASX and TSX listed public company and was one of Australia's largest oil and gas companies prior to it being purchased by Baytex Energy Corp. for $2.6 billion in June, 2014. Under Mr. Brooks' leadership Aurora implemented a new strategy to transform it from a non-operated production company into an operating focused company to unlock greater shareholder value by leveraging its existing significant technical and commercial expertise in the Eagle Ford formation of south Texas. The strategy resulted in accretive growth through targeted acquisitions of under developed nearby Eagle Ford assets and selective exploration efforts resulting in Aurora operating nearly 30% of its production and 45% of its leasehold interests, including one new core exploration area at the time of the purchase by Baytex. Mr. Brooks has previously also worked as President and CEO of two private equity sponsored companies from 2006 to 2011. Prior thereto, Mr. Brooks held various positions at Marathon Oil Company from 1982-2006, including an executive position to grow the company in select areas within its corporate strategy. His positions at Marathon also included Director, Worldwide M&A and Business Development, North America and South America. Resource play projects worked by Mr. Brooks include the U.S. include the Eagle Ford and Austin Chalk in south Texas; the Niobrara and Mowry in central Wyoming; the Bakken in North Dakota; Williams Fork in northwest Colorado; early work in coal bed methane in Wyoming and oil sand projects in Canada. Besides his resource play involvement, his experience includes domestic and international conventional plays in Canada, North Africa and West Africa and China. Mr. Brooks is based in Houston. He obtained his Bachelor of Science, Business Management at the University of Wyoming, Casper, and his Master of Business Administration (finance) at Our Lady of the Lake University.

Steven Sharpe 

Mr. Sharpe is currently Managing Director of The EmBeSa Corporation, a private consultancy dealing primarily with corporate restructuring and business strategy. Most recently, Mr. Sharpe was Chairman and Interim CEO of Longview Oil Corp (TSX) until its acquisition by Surge Energy Inc. in June of this year. He was for many years Chairman of Advantage Oil & Gas Ltd. (TSX, NYSE), and was a director and Chair of the Special Committee of the Board of Renegade Petroleum Ltd. (TSX-V). Until March, 2013, Mr. Sharpe was CEO and a member of the Board of C.A. Bancorp Inc. (TSX).

Steven graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1977; he spent his legal career at Torys and then Davies, Ward & Beck until 1998. During that time, much of his time was spent advising banks, multinational corporations and boards of directors on strategic, conflictual and governance issues. He co-headed the work-out and restructuring group at Davies, and participated in a variety of national and international situations. From 1998 until 2001, Mr. Sharpe was the Executive Vice President of the Kroll-O'Gara Company (NASDAQ) in New York. He was responsible for strategic planning, business development and the building of a mergers and acquisitions group. During his tenure, the M&A group completed more than 10 acquisitions of scale, spread out over North America, the U.K., South America and the People's Republic of China. In 2002, Mr. Sharpe and Gordon Cheesbrough founded Blair Franklin Capital Partners Inc., a Toronto-based investment bank. Steven was co-Managing Partner of Blair Franklin from 2002 to 2007, and then Senior Advisor to the firm. Subsequently, he was Chairman and CEO of Prime Restaurants Royalty Income Fund which became Prime Restaurants Inc. (TSX) where he was Chairman until its sale to Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. in 2011.

Grant of Options 

Madalena is also pleased to announce that the Board has approved the grant of options to purchase 350,000 common shares of the Company to each of Messrs. Brooks and Sharpe at an exercise price per share equal to the closing price of Madalena's common shares on September 24, 2014 pursuant to the stock option plan of the Company.

About Madalena - International and Domestic Assets 

Madalena is an independent, Canada-based, international and domestic upstream oil and gas company whose main business activities include exploration, development and production of crude oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas.

Internationally, Madalena holds 14 large land blocks within five provinces in Argentina where it is focused on the delineation of large petroleum in-place shale and unconventional resources in the Vaca Muerta and Agrio shales, in addition to multiple tight sand plays. The Company is also implementing horizontal drilling and completions technology to develop high impact conventional and resource plays.

Domestically, Madalena's core area of operations is located in the Greater Paddle River area of west-central Alberta where the Company holds approximately 200 gross (150 net) sections of land (approximately 78% average W.I.) encompassing light oil and liquids-rich gas resource plays. Madalena's primary domestic focus is to exploit its large inventory of horizontal drilling locations on its Ostracod oil and other oil and liquids-rich gas resource plays.

Madalena trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MVN and on the OTC under the symbol MDLNF. Basic corporate information, recent news releases and regularly updated corporate presentations are available on the Company's website at http://www.madalenaenergy.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. 

For further information:

Kevin Shaw, P.Eng, MBA
President and Chief Executive Officer
Madalena Energy Inc.
Phone: +1(403)262-1901 (Ext. 230)
kdshaw@madalenaenergy.com
Thomas Love, CA
VP, Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Madalena Energy Inc.
Phone: +1(403)262-1901 (Ext. 227)
tlove@madalenaenergy.com