The story of Berry Petroleum Corp. is far from over. The 100-year-old oil and gas company based in Bakersfield, Calif., recently launched a $300 million IPO roughly 18 months after it emerged from bankruptcy.

On July 16, Berry said it will offer about 18.8 million shares of its common stock to be listed on the NASDAQ under the symbol “BRY.” More than 34% of the shares offered are from selling shareholders, including Benefit Street Partners and Oaktree Capital Management.

UPDATE: Berry Petroleum Prices Below Target In Bellwether IPO For E&Ps

The current expected offering price for Berry’s stock is between $15 and $17 per share. Using the midpoint of the initial pricing range, the offering would imply an enterprise value of roughly $1.5 billion or $60,000 per flowing barrel of oil equivalent (boe), Michael Hanson, partner and founding member of Parkman Whaling LLC, said in a research note.

Berry Petroleum’s roots stretch back to 1909 when C.J. Berry founded its predecessor companies in search of oil in California’s San Joaquin Basin.

Throughout the years, the Californian oil company evolved and eventually began to expand outside of the Golden State. By 2013, Berry was sold for $4.3 billion in shares and acquired debt to Linn Energy LLC, which itself filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy only a few years later.

Berry emerged from the bankruptcy as a standalone company in February 2017 with assets in California, Colorado, Texas and Utah. The company is focused on California since about 70% of its first-quarter production of 26,200 boe/d is derived from the state.

“California is and has been one of the most productive oil and natural gas regions in the world,” the company said in its S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Despite the perception that working in California is more challenging, oil companies can thrive in the state as long as they budget for more time to obtain permits and other regulatory approvals, according to Trem Smith, CEO of Berry Petroleum.

RELATED: Why California Oil Production Needs To Ramp Up

While operating in California is not a “walk in the park” for oil and gas companies, once investors see the data, they tend to change their mind, Smith said in April.

Berry Petroleum’s Portfolio (Source: Berry Petroleum Corp.)

In California, Berry focuses on conventional, shallow reservoirs in the San Joaquin and East Ventura basins.

Berry also owns assets in the Uinta Basin in Utah and the East Texas Basin as well as the Piceance Basin in Colorado, where the company is targeting natural gas production from a conventional, tight sandstone reservoir using proven slickwater fracture stimulation techniques to increase recoveries.

Still, Berry expects its decades-old proven completion techniques in California, which includes steamflood and low-volume fracture stimulation, are relatively low-cost compared to modern unconventional resource plays.

For example, Berry estimates the cost of proved undeveloped reserves (PUD) from wells drilled and completed in California will average less than $450,000 per well. In contrast, the company expects the cost of wells in the Piceance Basin to average $1.8 million per well.

Berry considers California to be an opportunity for growth since the San Joaquin Basin, known as a “super basin,” still has a tremendous amount of untapped oil to be recovered.

“Some of the producers in California are producing from existing oil fields and are not actively looking to grow,” Smith said, adding he considers this an opportunity. He believes Berry has opportunities to expand its position within the state in the Belridge, Midway Sunset and McKittrick oil fields.

A portion of the proceeds from Berry’s IPO will be used to buy back up to roughly 4.2 million shares of stock owned by affiliates of shareholders Benefit Street Partners and Oaktree Capital. As a result, Berry said the number of its outstanding shares will increase by 8 million.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Wells Fargo Securities and BMO Capital Markets are lead book-running managers for Berry’s IPO. Additional book-running managers are Evercore ISI and UBS Investment Bank.

KeyBanc Capital Markets, Capital One Securities, Johnson Rice & Co. LLC, Simmons & Co. International, energy specialists of Piper Jaffray, Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., ABN AMRO ING, BOK Financial Securities Inc. and Citizens Capital Markets are acting as co-managers for the offering.

Emily Patsy can be reached at epatsy@hartenergy.com.