Harvest Natural Resources has entered into a definitive agreement with an affiliate of Newfield Exploration Company to sell all of the Company's oil and gas assets in Utah's Uinta Basin for $215 million in cash. The sale has an effective date of March 1, 2011.

Harvest President and Chief Executive Officer, James Edmiston, said, "This transaction provides Harvest with an opportunity to quickly capture the value created by two years of highly successful land acquisition, exploration, appraisal and development work. We are proud of the fact that we were able to pioneer a new oil resource play in an area that had seen essentially no drilling activity for the past 25 years, and we are especially proud that we were able to reach this milestone only one year after making our initial oil discovery in our Bar F well."

Edmiston continued, "The sale refocuses the Company on its international portfolio and the net proceeds from this transaction will yield a strong balance sheet to reduce its outstanding debt, continue the execution of our highly prospective international exploration programs in Indonesia, Gabon and Oman while at the same time continuing our strategic alternatives process."

The net proceeds from the sale are estimated to be $205 million after deduction for transaction related costs. Closing is expected to occur in May 2011 and the final sales price is subject to customary adjustments at closing at that time.

The oil and gas assets are located in Harvest's Antelope project area in the Uinta Basin of Utah and consist of approximately 69,000 gross acres (47,600 net acres). Harvest owned a working interest of approximately 70 percent in the Uinta assets. The transaction includes wells operated by both Harvest and Newfield.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch served as the Company's financial advisor in connection with the transaction. This transaction is part of the Company's ongoing process of exploring strategic alternatives announced in September of 2010.

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