Berry Petroleum Replaces 293% of 2007 Production and Increases Proved Reserves by 13% to 169 MMBOE.

Achieves One Year Finding & Development Cost of $10.07 per BOE

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Berry Petroleum Company (NYSE:BRY) announced that estimated proved oil and gas reserves increased by 13% to 169 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) as of December 31, 2007. In 2007, Berry added 35.4 million BOE at a finding and development cost of $10.07 per BOE (see reconciliation below) and replaced 293% of the 9.8 million BOE (26,900 BOE per day) it produced in 2007.

Robert Heinemann, president and chief executive officer, stated, "Organic growth provided the increase in our proved reserves for 2007 as we had an extensive development program that added proved reserves in five of our six core asset areas. We booked an estimated 13.1 million BOE in proved reserves from our Piceance development, and given our large inventory there, we expect to add significant proved reserves for several years to this asset. In California, we added approximately 14.3 million BOE mostly from our N. Midway Diatomite, Poso Creek and Ethel D assets, and in the Rockies, our Uinta and DJ development activities added another 8.0 million BOE."

At year-end 2007, the Company's reserve mix includes 117 million barrels of crude oil, condensate and natural gas liquids, and 316 billion cubic feet of natural gas, or 69% oil and 31% natural gas. Geographically, 60% of proved reserves are in California and 40% in the Rocky Mountain region. The Company's year-end reserves-to-production ratio increased slightly to 16.5 years, based on annualized fourth quarter 2007 average daily production. Proved developed reserves represent 61% of total proved reserves.

Berry calculated its year-end 2007 proved reserves using year-end 2007 commodity prices of $95.98 per Bbl of oil (WTI) and a Henry Hub price of $7.48 per MMBtu of natural gas (both based on their respective NYMEX prices), adjusted by field differentials to arrive at the net price received by the Company as of December 31, 2007. Berry's average net price used in its reserve report is approximately $79.19 per Bbl of oil and liquids and $6.27 per Mcf of natural gas. The estimated discounted net present value using a 10% annual discount rate, or PV-10, of Berry's proved reserves at December 31, 2007, was $3.5 billion ($2.4 billion after-tax), compared to $1.6 billion ($1.2 billion after-tax) in 2006.

Following is a reconciliation of the Company's proved oil and natural gas reserve quantities between December 31, 2006 and December 31, 2007:

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About Berry Petroleum Company

Berry Petroleum Company is a publicly traded independent oil and gas production and exploitation company with its headquarters in Bakersfield, California.

Safe harbor under the "Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995"

Any statements in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties and words such as "expect," and forms of those words and others indicate forward-looking statements. Important factors which could affect actual results are discussed in PART 1, Item 1A. Risk Factors of Berry's 2006 Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 28, 2007 under the heading "Other Factors Affecting the Company's Business and Financial Results" in the section titled "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and all material changes are updated in Part II, Item 1A within our Form 10-Qs filed subsequent to that date."