Berry Corporation (BRY)

Berry Corporation, formerly Berry Petroleum Corporation, was an independent upstream energy company focused on onshore, long-lived oil and gas reserves in the western United States. Its roots go back to 1909 in California. The company's principal operations were in the San Joaquin Basin of California, where it used thermal enhanced oil recovery in heavy oil fields, and in the Uinta Basin of Utah, with additional assets elsewhere in the region.

Berry's history included several ownership changes. Berry Petroleum was acquired by Linn Energy in 2013, and after Linn Energy's Chapter 11 case in 2016 the business emerged as a stand-alone company in 2017. Berry Petroleum Corporation completed its initial public offering in July 2018 and listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker BRY. The company later adopted the name Berry Corporation and was headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with operating offices in Bakersfield, California.

The company operated in two segments, exploration and production, and well servicing and abandonment. The latter was conducted through C&J Well Services, which served Berry's own operations and third-party customers in California. Berry paid a regular dividend and worked to reduce debt, but its California operations faced regulatory, permitting and cost pressures that affected the pace of development.

In June 2025 Berry agreed to combine with California Resources Corporation, a Long Beach-based energy company listed on the New York Stock Exchange as CRC. Under the all-stock agreement, Berry stockholders were to receive 0.0718 shares of CRC common stock for each Berry share. The companies said the combination would bring together adjacent California assets and add scale in the state.

Berry stockholders approved the merger at a special meeting in December 2025, with about 98 percent of votes cast in favor. The transaction was completed on or about December 18, 2025, and Berry became a wholly owned subsidiary of California Resources. The exchange ratio was fixed, so the value received by Berry holders depended on CRC's share price at closing.

Berry's business was closely tied to commodity prices and to California's regulatory environment, which governs drilling permits, steam injection and emissions. Heavy oil production needs steam, which Berry generated with natural gas and cogeneration facilities, so costs depended on both oil and gas markets. The company also held a smaller, lower-cost position in Utah and had pursued carbon management projects in California. The combination with California Resources was presented as a way to spread fixed costs across a larger operating footprint in the same basin.

Following the closing, a Form 25 was filed with the SEC to remove Berry's common stock from listing on Nasdaq, and the BRY ticker stopped trading. Former Berry stockholders became holders of CRC common stock, which continues to trade on the NYSE.