DENVER, Jan. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Venoco, Inc. (NYSE: VQ) announced today that it intends to market its oil and gas interests in Texas including producing and non-producing assets. Net production from Venoco's Texas properties for the quarter ending September 30, 2009 averaged 1,559 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/d).

"We have some excellent assets in Texas, however, our focus in the coming years will be on the significant opportunities we have in California. As such, we believe monetizing our Texas assets is the right course of action," said Tim Marquez, Chairman and CEO. "We plan on marketing the producing assets as a package, and may or may not include our interests in the Hastings field."

Venoco currently owns a two percent overriding royalty interest in the Hastings field that it sold to Denbury Resources in February of 2009. Denbury is undertaking a CO2 flood of the field which is at the terminus of its "Green Line" - a pipeline from Denbury's Jackson Dome CO2 field in Mississippi. After reaching a calculated payout, Venoco can back-in to a 22.3% working interest in the Hastings field. A mid-year, third-party reserve report estimated Venoco's probable reserves, just for the first phase of the CO2 flood, at approximately 24 million BOE.

Venoco is an independent energy company primarily engaged in the acquisition, exploitation and development of oil and natural gas properties in California and Texas. Venoco operates three offshore platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, has non-operated interests in three other platforms, operates four onshore properties in Southern California, has extensive operations in Northern California's Sacramento Basin and operates thirteen fields in Texas. Estimates of unproved reserves, which may potentially be recoverable, are, by their nature, more uncertain than estimates of proved reserves and accordingly are subject to substantially greater risk of not actually being realized.

SOURCE Venoco, Inc.