Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) morphed into a sprinter by the end of 2016, streaking through a stellar A&D year that saw divestitures top $1.3 billion while adding more than 60,000 acres in Oklahoma’s Stack Play.
The company said Feb. 16 it added a chip-in $155 million deal to sell assets in Wyoming, excluding closing costs. In fourth-quarter 2016, Marathon also closed on a $235 million sale of nonoperated CO2 and waterflood assets in West Texas and New Mexico. The company had previously announced the conventional CO2 and waterflood asset sales in October.
Despite spending more than $900 million on acquisitions, including a deal in the Anadarko Basin Stack Play in 2016, Marathon ended December with $2.5 billion in cash and $5.8 billion of total liquidity, the company said. That gives the company flexibility to pursue other deals while addressing near-term debt maturities, Marathon said.
Lee M. Tillman, Marathon’s president and CEO, said the company is happy with its inventory across its basins.
However, “we’re always looking at potential resource capture opportunities within our three core basins. I think, that was clearly on display last year with the Stack.” Tillman said the company has also added some bolt-on acquisitions as well.
“One of the reasons we want financial flexibility and a strong balance sheet is so that we can participate in those market opportunities as they present themselves,” he said.
Marathon said it surpassed the top end of its noncore asset sale guidance range by $300 million, the largest of which was the divestiture of its Wyoming asset.
The company said in second-quarter 2016 it would divest its Wyoming upstream and associated midstream assets for proceeds of $870 million.
In addition to its asset sales, the company added 61,000 net acres in the Stack in June. At the time, Marathon expanded its position in the Stack to about 200,000 net surface acres following a deal to acquire acreage from EnCap’s PayRock Energy Holdings LLC.
The Stack acquisition had an implied acreage value of $11,800 per acre adjusting for proved developed producing reserves, the company said.
The company considers the Stack, the Bakken and the Eagle Ford its three core areas. Marathon plans to more than double its 2017 capex to $2.2 billion compared to $1.1 billion budgeted in 2016.
The company is also planning to ramp up its 2017 activity more than expected, with implications for 2018 production and its long-term growth, Capital One Securities said in a Feb. 16 note.
Marathon plans to increase to 22 rigs on average in 2017 compared to prior guidance of “up to 16 [rigs] if prices cooperate.”
Darren Barbee can be reached at dbarbee@hartenergy.com
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