HOUSTON, June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. (Nasdaq: CRZO) today announced the addition of Wells Fargo Bank, NA ("Wells Fargo") and Calyon New York Branch ("Calyon") to its banking syndicate and the net increase of commitments under its credit facility to $284 million from $259 million. As described in an 8-K filing on May 27th, Wells Fargo joined the Carrizo banking syndicate as administrative agent on May 20th by assuming $50 million of Guaranty Bank's credit commitment. On June 5th, Calyon also joined the banking syndicate, increasing the total credit commitments to $284 million. These events also raise the number of member banks from seven to nine.

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Chief Financial Officer Paul F. Boling stated, "We are very pleased to announce the increase in total firm credit commitments to $284 million. The addition of Wells Fargo, as administrative agent, and Calyon further diversifies and strengthens our banking consortium. In this environment of tightened credit availability, we believe today's announcement affirms the continued confidence in Carrizo's underlying asset base and core business strategy. We plan to continue to balance our 2009 capital expenditures with free cash flow and have no plans to make use of this increase in credit availability."

Carrizo's next credit facility borrowing base redetermination is scheduled for the fall of 2009.

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, future credit facility redeterminations, diversification and strengthening of Carrizo's banking consortium, confidence of Carrizo's banking consortium in Carrizo's assets and business strategy, and use of availability under the credit facility, 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, and other risks described in Carrizo's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008 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.