Marathon Oil has agreed to sell its 10% stake in the giant Shenandoah oil discovery in the US Gulf of Mexico as part of a major sell-off of assets.
The firm has already sold out most of its major assets in the Gulf of Mexico. In November last year, Marathon announced it had agreed to sell all its operated and producing assets in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as a tranche of non-operated assets, leaving it with, at the time, interests in some producing assets and interests in the Gunflint development and Shenandoah.
Shenandoah is operated by Anadarko and was discovered in 2013 in the Walker Ridge block in about 5800ft water depth. Anadarko continued its appraisal work on the field last year, encountering more than 620ft of net oil pay on the Shenandoah-4 side-track. In its 2015 full year report the firm said it "continued to progress this giant oil discovery toward development." The Shenandoah-4 appraisal well was due to be drilling in Q1 this year.
Today, Marathon also announced agreements to sell off various onshore assets, in a deal amounting to $950 million, bringing its total divestment program to about $1.3 billion since last year.
Marathon didn't disclose who it had made the deals with and said the Shenandoah sale was part of a number of separate transactions worth some $80 million.
"Since August 2015, we have now announced or closed non-core asset sales of approximately $1.3 billion, surpassing our targeted range of $750 million to $1 billion," said Marathon Oil president and CEO Lee Tillman. "Ongoing portfolio management continues to drive the simplification and concentration of our portfolio to lower risk, higher return US resource plays and support our 2016 objective of balance sheet protection."
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