Xtra Energy Corp. announced that the company has commenced preparations for an oil shale exploration and development core hole drilling program for its unconventional oil shale property located Pasquia Hills, Saskatchewan, Canada. Company's geological, engineering and operations team have completed an engineering evaluation analysis and identified three core hole drilling locations and has initiated permitting and surface lease documentation in accordance with Saskatchewan government and regulatory regulations.

Negotiations with drilling contractors are currently underway and drilling license application approvals to the Saskatchewan Petroleum Energy, Mines and Lands Branch are also in the process of being submitted. The exploration and development drilling program is expected to commence in late November 2012 and the gross costs for the core hole drilling program are estimated at $250,000. Company's core hole drilling program will consist of up to three core holes, targeting an identified sweet spot to examine, optimize information and further delineate the company's oil shale deposit and to determine the primary mine site for the establishment of a Shale-to-Liquids production plant.

Company's Pasquia Hills oil shale property has undergone two previous successful exploration and development core hole drilling and analysis programs, involving the drilling of a total of 13 core holes on the permit and 150 meters of oil shale core samples have been analyzed at a total cost of over $1.5 million dollars. In addition, water well log data, plus the results of the drilling of an additional thirteen sun oil core holes located within the mapped area, as well as published Saskatchewan government information have extensively delineated the company's oil shale resource deposit. The successful results from the previous core hole drilling programs and associated laboratory analysis of the oil shale cores as well as the other described engineering data resulted in August 2009 of a publicly released NI 51-101 compliant Contingent Resources Report by Chapman Petroleum Engineering Ltd. which estimated contingent and/or prospective oil shale resources of gross 1.88 billion barrels (net 1.034 billion barrels) of recoverable oil distillate.

The company corrects information disclosed through previous public new releases, that the Company's oil shale Permit SPH00008 consisted of 68,910 acres. In fact, company's oil shale permit SHP00008 encompasses at total of 86,533 contiguous acres of oil shale exploration and development rights. Company's Pasquia Hills oil shale property consists of a total of 86,533 acres of oil shale exploration and development rights located in the Pasquia Hills region of northeastern Saskatchewan, Canada.

The company holds a 55% working interest in the oil shale permit SHP0008 though it's recently purchased wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary Oilshale International Corp.