“Mark has gained a thorough understanding of our core oil and gas assets to which he can now apply his extensive business, engineering and planning experience from both domestic and international operations,” said Tim Marquez, CEO and Chairman of the board.

Prior to Venoco, Mr. DePuy served in various operational and business planning functions with Unocal. His work experience includes over 13 years in Coastal California operations, both offshore and onshore. As a corporate planning manager for Unocal, Mr. DePuy was responsible for a worldwide capital budget of $2 billion, business planning and performance management.

Mr. DePuy is a registered engineer, with a petroleum engineering degree from Colorado School of Mines and an M.B.A. from UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Management. He has been active with the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the American Petroleum Institute.

Venoco also announced it has hired Douglas Griggs as the company's Chief Accounting Officer. Mr. Griggs is a Certified Public Accountant with twenty-five years of accounting, including 13 years with Ernst & Young, financial management and Sarbanes project consulting experience. He has an accounting and economics degree from the University of N. Iowa.

“Doug will fill a vital role as the company becomes publicly traded,” explained David Christofferson, Venoco's Chief Financial Officer. “His extensive experience with Sarbanes projects will also be important to implementing our Sarbanes compliance program.”