Benton Oil to Relocate Headquarters to Carpinteria

Benton Oil & Gas Co. has decided to move its headquarters from Oxnard to Carpinteria. The company will occupy most of a 25,000-square-foot building in the Santa Barbara County community.

Benton, an independent exploration and production firm, will relocate in February mainly because it needs more room for its administrative operations, the company said.

Stephen Doll, a broker who negotiated the lease for the Carpinteria facility, said Benton will sublease its present office space on the 11th and 12th floors of the Union Bank Building in Oxnard’s Financial Plaza. Doll is a broker with Grubb & Ellis Co.

Benton, whose stock is traded on Nasdaq, has domestic operations in the Gulf Coast region of Louisiana and overseas operations in eastern Venezuela and western Siberia in Russia.

To help finance its domestic activities, the company recently sold some of its domestic holdings to Tenneco Ventures, a unit of Tenneco Gas.