Tri-Valley Concludes Annual Meeting with Positive Votes; Continues Capital Formation To Strengthen Balance Sheet and Advance Oil and Gold Projects

Management's slate of directors includes its vice chairman, G. Thomas Gamble of Gamble Family Vineyards of Napa Valley, California; Paul Bateman, president of Klein & Saks Group of Washington, D.C., Ambassador Ed Gabriel, president and CEO of The Gabriel Company of Washington, D.C., Dr. Henry Lowenstein, Dean of the Wall College of Business, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina; Loren Miller, CPA, of Arcadia, California; James S. Mayer, principal, The Pinnacle Financial Group of Yardley, Pennsylvania and F. Lynn Blystone, chairman and chief executive officer of Tri-Valley Corporation and its five subsidiaries of Bakersfield, California. All directors received in excess of 92% of all votes cast.

Measure Two on the ballot was to amend the Certificate of Incorporation to authorize issuance of up to twenty million shares of preferred stock from the currently five million authorized, which received the required plurality of the 27,411,577 common shares outstanding as of the August 18, 2009 record date.

Measure Three amended the Certificate of Incorporation to grant the Board of Directors authority to set terms for issuing preferred stock in the event the Company elects to do so. It also received the required majority of outstanding shares eligible to be voted. Both measures were supported on a ratio in the range of more than 12 to one in favor.

Total share votes cast were 18,464,256 or 67.36% of the outstanding shares of record on August 18, 2009.

Shareholders heard presentations from management on the Company's oil and gas projects in California and on its gold and calcium carbonate projects in Alaska, followed by an extensive question and answer period from shareholders attending from all over the United States and several foreign countries.

The Company presented a preliminary reserve evaluation report on its heavy oil project in Oxnard, California prepared by the independent Calgary, Alberta, Canada engineering firm, AJM Petroleum Consultants, who are experts in heavy oil and tar sand reservoirs. Tri-Valley noted that it has successfully drilled eight horizontal wells into the Vaca Tar Sands at Oxnard and is steaming and flowing individual well bores to build production profiles. Using current oilfield technology, Tri-Valley is making impressive progress in tar sand exploitation where previous operators were unsuccessful.

Tri-Valley and its mineral subsidiary, Select Resources Corporation, are very excited about the Shorty Creek gold project in Livengood, Alaska where independent data now confirms a very intense and much larger trend on Select's claim block extending from the area owned and now being drilled by International Tower Hill (NYSE AMEX: THM). International Tower Hill so far has announced a resource of 8.2 million ounces and a target in the range of 15 million ounces of gold on their section of property. Select believes the drilling success of ITH on its nearby property greatly enhances Select's chances of success on its claim block. Select is also advancing discussions with international buyer prospects for its high grade calcium carbonate that can be produced from its quarry at Calder Bay on Prince of Wales Island in Southeastern Alaska, and is moving forward with plans for additional exploration on its massive gold exploration project at Richardson, Alaska.

Shareholders also welcomed Tri-Valley's new president and chief operating officer, Maston N. Cunningham who is an experienced international executive formerly with Occidental Petroleum and the new chief financial officer, John E. Durbin, who is also an experienced international financial executive formerly with Conoco/DuPont/ConocoPhillips.

Tri-Valley is evaluating several financing term sheets from interested east and west coast investment bankers to fund acceleration of its various projects to profitable operations status. With oil prices firming, and gold prices at record levels, Tri-Valley believes its projects are in the right places to reward shareholders and partners.

Tri-Valley has been in business as a successful operating company since 1963, and has been a full reporting 12 (g) publicly traded Delaware Corporation since 1972. Tri-Valley Corporation stock is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange AMEX under the symbol "TIV." Our company website, which includes all SEC filings, is www.tri-valleycorp.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events and performance could vary materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements which includes such words and phrases as exploratory, wildcat, prospect, speculates, unproved, prospective, very large, expect, potential, etc. Among the factors that could cause actual results, events and performance to differ materially are risks and uncertainties discussed in the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2009, and the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008.

SOURCE: Tri-Valley Corporation

Tri-Valley Corporation 
Egan Gost, Director of Public and Investor Relations 
1-800-579-9314 
information@tri-valleycorp.com 
www.tri-valleycorp.com