Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. Announces Increase of Credit Facility Commitments by $27.5 Million to $250 Million

HOUSTON, Dec. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. (Nasdaq: CRZO) today announced the addition of the Union Bank of California, N.A. to its banking syndicate and the increase of commitments under its credit facility to $250 million from $222.5 million. This event raises the number of member banks from six to seven. Chief Executive Officer S. P. “Chip” Johnson, IV stated, “We are very pleased to announce the addition of Union Bank of California to our banking consortium. Coming during this time of tightened credit availability, we believe today’s announcement to be a vote of confidence in Carrizo’s underlying value. While we have no current plans to make use of this increase in borrowing capability in our projected 2009 capital expenditure budget, we welcome the additional capital flexibility. As we recently announced, we plan to reduce 2009 capital expenditure levels to be equivalent to anticipated 2009 cash flow. Under our proposed 2009 budget, we believe we will still be able to increase production 70% from 2008 to 2009.”

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Carrizo’s next credit facility borrowing base redetermination is scheduled for the first quarter of 2009. The Company expects the growth in reserves and new production resulting from the Company’s fourth quarter 2008 Barnett Shale development activity to have a favorable impact on this redetermination.

About the Company

Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. is a Houston-based energy company actively engaged in the exploration, development, exploitation, and production of oil and natural gas primarily in the Barnett Shale in North Texas, the Marcellus Shale in Appalachia, and in proven onshore trends along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast regions. Carrizo controls significant prospective acreage blocks and utilizes advanced drilling and completion technology along with sophisticated 3-D seismic techniques to identify potential oil and gas drilling opportunities and to optimize reserve recovery.

Statements in this news release that are not historical facts, including those related to capital expenditures, production increases, future credit facility redeterminations, funding of development plans, financial flexibility, use of availability under the credit facility, growth in reserves, increases in production, new production and future borrowing base levels, are forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations. Although Carrizo believes that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that these expectations will prove correct. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include market and other conditions, capital needs and uses, commodity price changes, effects of the global financial crisis on exploration activity, results of and dependence on exploratory drilling activities, operating risks, land issues, weather, [board approval of the 2009 capital budget,] and other risks described in Carrizo’s Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007 and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    Contact:  Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc.
              Richard Hunter, Vice President of Investor Relations
              Paul F. Boling, Chief Financial Officer
              (713) 328-1000

SOURCE Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc.