2010-09-15-2010-09-13-2010-11-10

Bought company with 26,607 net undeveloped acres in the Hangingstone and West Surmont areas of the Athabasca oil-sands region of Alberta, gaining 183 MMBO in contingent resources.

Athabasca Oil Sands Corp., Calgary, (Toronto: ATH) has closed its purchased of Excelsior Energy Ltd., Calgary, (Toronto Venture: ELE) in a deal valued at C$144 million.

Athabasca Oil Sands will issue either C$0.36 cash or 0.0347 share per Excelsior share. Excelsior currently has 281.2 million shares outstanding and 104.2 million Excelsior warrants outstanding at exercise prices ranging from $0.30 to $0.32 per Excelsior share.

Excelsior warrant holders who do not exercise their warrants prior to closing of the deal will exchange their Excelsior warrants for warrants to purchase Athabasca Oil Sands shares based on the same ratio applied to the excelsior shares.

Excelsior's assets include 58 sections on approximately 26,607 net undeveloped acres on two contiguous blocks in the Hangingstone and West Surmont areas of the Athabasca oil-sands region in Alberta. Excelsior has operatorship and working interests of 75% at Hangingstone and 64.3% at West Surmont. Contingent resources as of year-end 2009 were approximately 183 million barrels of oil.

Excelsior also has a patent for the combustion overhead gravity drainage proprietary technology and project approval for a 1,000 barrel-per-day experimental pilot planned for the second half of 2010 with subsequent implementation and commissioning in early 2011.

Athabasca Oil Sands president and chief executive Sveinung Svarte says, "We are also very pleased to see the massive support from Excelsior's security holders with only 0.1% voting against this plan of arrangement. Most of them preferred Athabasca shares rather than cash. We see that as a strong vote of confidence for the company and we are happy to welcome them as new shareholders."

The addition of Excelsior's high quality assets to those of AOSC at Hangingstone is in line with the strategy we have presented to our investors and creates a world-class, stand-alone project. The transaction will result in a project of critical size and an accelerated development of the area."

Excelsior president and CEO David Winter says, "Our asset base, centered around the Hangingstone property is a great fit with AOSC's current high quality oil sands assets, which have tremendous upside potential. We believe this Transaction provides for a more efficient development of the consolidated Hangingstone project and allows Excelsior's shareholders to benefit from the upside potential in a strong, well financed oil sands focused company."

GMP Securities Ltd. and Peters & Co. Ltd. were financial advisors to Athabasca Oil Sands. CIBC World Markets Inc. and Raymond James Ltd. were financial advisors to Excelsior.