Canada Southern Petroleum Ltd. Files Preliminary Proxy Materials Related to Corporate Governance Initiatives CALGARY, Alberta, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Canada Southern Petroleum Ltd. (the "Company") (NASDAQ/Pacific: CSPLF; Toronto/Boston: CSW) today reported that the Company has today filed with U.S. and Canadian securities regulators the Company's preliminary proxy materials relating to a planned special meeting of the Company's shareholders scheduled to be held on November 30, 2004 in Calgary, Alberta. If needed, a special confirmatory meeting of shareholders is scheduled for December 15, 2004 in Calgary, Alberta. The record date for the Meetings will be October 18, 2004. The purpose of the Meetings is to allow shareholders to consider and, if thought appropriate, enact changes to the corporate governance structure for the Company. The governance changes will be implemented by the continuance of the Company from being a corporation governed by the corporate legislation of Nova Scotia to be a corporation governed by the corporate legislation of Alberta. At the special meeting, shareholders will be asked to vote on special and ordinary resolutions with respect to the following four items: (1) the continuance of the Company from Nova Scotia to Alberta and the adoption of the articles of continuance and new corporate bylaws under the Business Corporations Act (Alberta); (2) the elimination of the five year term for directors, so that commencing at the 2005 Annual General Meeting each director will be elected annually for a one year term; (3) the elimination of the 1,000 share voting limitation, so that each shareholder will be entitled to vote all shares held by him or her; and (4) the elimination of the requirement for director approval of shareholder action. Richard C. McGinity, the Company's Chairman of the Board of Directors, stated, "We consider the continuance to Alberta and corporate governance amendments to be a fundamental component of the modernization of the Company's corporate governance and believe that the implementation of these proposals is very important for Canada Southern and its shareholders. The Board of Directors has determined that the resolutions are fair to the shareholders and are in the best interests of the Company." The Company's preliminary proxy materials are subject to review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and may change. The Company anticipates finalizing the proxy materials as soon as practicable in October 2004 and mailing its definitive proxy materials to shareholders on or about October 20, 2004. This announcement is not a proxy statement, nor is it a solicitation of any proxies from the Company's shareholders. The Company's preliminary proxy materials relating to the Meetings have been filed today with the SEC via its Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval System (EDGAR) system and with the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR). The preliminary proxy materials may be obtained free of charge at the SEC's website address of http://www.sec.gov/ or at http://www.sedar.com/. A link to the Company's SEC and SEDAR filings can also be found on the Company website address of http://www.cansopet.com/. Canada Southern Petroleum Ltd. is an independent energy company based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The Company is engaged in oil and gas exploration and development, with its primary interests in producing properties in the Yukon Territory and British Columbia, Canada. The Company's limited voting shares are traded on the NASDAQ SmallCap Market and the Pacific Exchange, Inc. under the symbol "CSPLF," and on the Boston Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "CSW." The Company has 14,417,770 shares outstanding. Any statements in this release that are not historical in nature are intended to be, and are hereby identified as "forward-looking statements" for purposes of the "Safe Harbor Statement" under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Among these risks and uncertainties are uncertainties as to the costs, pricing and production levels from the properties in which the Company has interests, the extent of the recoverable reserves at those properties, and the significant costs associated with the exploration and development of the properties in which the Company has interests, particularly the Kotaneelee field. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. DATASOURCE: Canada Southern Petroleum Ltd. CONTACT: John W.A. McDonald, President and Chief Executive Officer of Canada Southern Petroleum Ltd., +1-403-269-7741 Web site: http://www.cansopet.com/

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