Pine Brook Road Partners Announces Line-of-Equity Financing for Oil and Gas Exploration Company Asia Pacific Exploration Consolidated
Sixth Investment Since Firm’s Founding in 2006 Brings Total Commitments to $600 million.

New York, NY – October 23, 2007 – Pine Brook Road Partners, LLC, a New York-based private equity firm established to make business building and growth capital investments, primarily in the energy and financial services sectors, today announced it has led an investor group to provide a $380 million line-of-equity commitment to Asia Pacific Exploration Consolidated, L.P. ("APEC").

APEC is a privately owned oil and gas exploration and production ("E&P") group led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Leon Codron and an experienced team that has specialized in exploration and business development activities in South East Asia. The company focuses on low- to medium-risk oil and gas exploration and exploitation opportunities in the onshore and shallow water offshore basins in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand.

Pine Brook is joined in the APEC investment by an outstanding group of partners including The AES Corporation, Temasek Holdings and Actis Capital. The AES Corporation is one of the world’s largest global power companies, with 2006 revenues of $11.6 billion and operations in 28 countries. Actis is a leading private equity investor operating exclusively within emerging markets. Actis has US$3.5 billion of funds under management and over 100 investment professionals in 14 offices. Temasek Holdings is an Asia investment house headquartered in Singapore. It manages a portfolio of more than US$100 billion, focused primarily in Asia.

"The investment in APEC is consistent with our practice of providing growth capital to exceptional management teams in an effort to build companies of meaningful scale," explained Howard Newman, President and CEO of Pine Brook. "We started with a premise that as host governments sought technically capable and well funded independents to participate in the exploration for medium sized fields, it would be possible to create such a company around an exceptional and experienced management team. Leon’s team has an outstanding track record of being oil finders and company builders in the region."

Leon Codron added, "From my many years of building ARCO’s and Singapore Petroleum’s business in the region, I hold a very strong belief that there exists a positive alignment of prolific exploration acreage, growing energy markets, host governments that welcome investments and well established petroleum fiscal systems. It is these factors that have led to the establishment of APEC and brought together such a strong group of partners who share this view."

Pine Brook Road Partners Portfolio
Since 2006, Pine Brook has closed on six investments aggregating $600 million of commitments. Its portfolio currently consists of:

• Phoenix Exploration Company, L.P.: A start-up oil and gas E&P company focused on the shallow waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the onshore Gulf Coast, primarily in Louisiana.

• Syndicate Holding Corp: A Puerto Rico-domiciled start-up reinsurance company that operates within Lloyd’s of London to offer "reinsurance-to-close" to orphan syndicates.

• Stonegate Production Company, LLC: A start-up oil and gas company focused on mature fields in onshore U.S.

• Common Resources, L.L.C.: A Houston-based, privately owned oil and gas E&P Company focused on conventional and non-conventional resource plays in the domestic onshore basins of the Gulf Coast, West Texas, and Mid-Continent.

• Aurigen Re Capital Limited: A start-up life re-insurance company focused on the Canadian market.

About Pine Brook Road Partners, LLC
Pine Brook Road Partners, LLC, is a New York-based private equity firm established in 2006 by a team of experienced private equity professionals to make business building and growth capital investments, primarily in the energy and financial services sectors, where the firm’s partners have more than 100 years of experience. Pine Brook typically backs experienced management teams in building businesses that have the potential for significant long-term capital appreciation.  For more information please visit the company’s web site at www.pinebrookpartners.com.

Contact – Joe Gantz, Chief Operating Officer
Pine Brook Partners
212 661 9207 or jgantz@pinebrookpartners.com

Media – Michael McMullan
Berns Communications Group
212-994-4660 or mmcmullan@bcg-pr.com