Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. is a Houston based independent energy company engaged in the exploration, development and production of natural gas and oil. Our current activities are focused in the Barnett Shale in North Texas and in the Marcellus Shale of northern Appalachia.  Carrizo also has continuing operations in proven productive trends along the onshore Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana.  In addition, Carrizo pursues exploration opportunities in the U.K. North Sea where two Carrizo generated prospects resulted in significant discoveries in the 2nd quarter of 2007.

We have grown our  production and reserves through 3-D driven exploration and development drilling programs. From our inception through December 31, 2008 we participated in the drilling of 723 (356 net) wells with a success rate of 72% in our onshore Gulf Coast area and 100% in the Barnett Shale.

The company has accumulated significant expertise in the drilling and completion of complex extended reach horizontal wells in resource shales. Our business strategy is to leverage this core competency in pursuing exploitation and development opportunities in the most prospective North American natural gas resource shale regions. This strategy has led to significant success in the Barnett Shale of the Fort Worth Basin where we are one of the lowest cost, fastest growing operators.

We have acquired over 12,763 square miles of 3-D seismic data that our experienced technical and managerial staff uses to refine our geologic models and to choose drilling locations. Even after the discovery of new reserves our seismic processing and interpretation skills are required to design the most efficient and low risk plan for future development. Our technical and operations teams average over 20 years of industry experience which is put to use in building our drilling inventory and developing our properties in a low risk manner.

As of December 31, 2008 we had over 59,300 acres under lease in the prolific Barnett Shale including 21,000 acres in the thickest, most productive portion know as the “Core”. We have 3-D seismic data over the majority of this property and have identified over 650 future drill sites having associated potential reserves of over 1 Tcfe of natural gas. We have identified the Marcellus Shale of Appalachia as our next focus area and source of future growth outside of the Barnett. This play is a logical extension of our Barnett expertise and we have accumulated over 103,000 net acres in the Marcellus shale in PA, WV, VA and NY at the end of May, 2009. Carrizo maintains significant acreage positions in other shale plays such as the Marfa, Fayetteville, New Albany and Floyd.

In 2008 we spent $545 million on oil and gas operations including $409 million in the Barnett where we increased our land position and drilled 80 gross (62 net) wells.