Whiting Petroleum Corporation Announces Completion of 8,000,000 Share Public Offering of Common Stock

DENVER, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Whiting Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: WLL) announced today that it completed its public offering of 8,000,000 shares of common stock at a price of $29.00 per share to the public.

Whiting received net proceeds of approximately $222.2 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated expenses of the offering. Whiting used all of the net proceeds that it received from the offering to repay a portion of the debt currently outstanding under its credit agreement. Whiting intends to use approximately $123.6 million of the increased credit availability to increase its 2009 base capital budget to develop incremental opportunities it has identified in the Northern and Central Rockies. However, Whiting may allocate these funds as well as the balance of the increased credit availability to either further develop these incremental projects or to expand the projects in its previously announced 2009 base capital budget that indicate the highest return based on drilling results through the time of such allocation.

Whiting has granted to the underwriters an option to purchase up to 1,200,000 additional shares of common stock at the same price per share solely to cover overallotments, if any.

About Whiting Petroleum Corporation

Whiting Petroleum Corporation, a Delaware corporation, is an independent oil and gas company that acquires, exploits, develops and explores for crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids primarily in the Permian Basin, Rocky Mountains, Mid-Continent, Gulf Coast and Michigan regions of the United States. The Company trades publicly under the symbol WLL on the New York Stock Exchange. For further information, please visit www.whiting.com.

SOURCE Whiting Petroleum Corporation