In its second quarter earnings conference in early August, Marathon Oil executives spoke of the likelihood of “potential acceleration” in 2014 in the Eagle Ford and “probably” the Bakken, where they said transportation bottlenecks had diminished.
“We have a lot of running room in both of those areas,” company President and CEO Lee Tillman said in the Aug. 7 conference call, promising to provide more details in December. He said any increase in activity would be “underpinned by the sound science that we’re currently doing,” particularly in the Eagle Ford with down-spacing pilot projects.
In response to a question from the audience about the Bakken, Executive Chairman Clarence Cazalot said Marathon has had good results in the upper Three Forks and would “continue to do some of the pilot work and the additional valuation we need to look at for the second and third benches … and begin to develop our plans for those additional zones.”
Previously company executives said that in 2013 Marathon would work to maximize production from the middle Bakken and upper Three Forks zones of the Bakken petroleum system, particularly in the Hector/Ajax and Myrmidon areas, as well as “explore additional formations such as the Lodgepole (part of the Bakken system), Tyler and Red River (separate petroleum systems) in the Williston Basin.”
The company expects to have its Williston Basin production between 50,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2017.
In second quarter, Marathon’s average production was approximately 39,000 net boepd, compared to 37,000 net boepd in the previous quarter.
The company reached total depth on 22 gross wells during the quarter and brought 16 gross wells to sales, compared to 18 and 22 gross wells respectively in first quarter.
In second quarter Marathon’s average time to drill a well continued to improve, averaging 15 days spud-to-total depth, or 22 days spud-to-spud, a top-quartile performance in the areas in which the company operates.
Marathon’s Bakken output averages approximately 90 percent crude oil, 5 percent NGLs and 5 percent natural gas.
Its U.S. Lower 48 onshore production grew to 182,000 boepd in second quarter, an increase of nearly 6 percent over first quarter, and highlighted by 11 percent growth from Eagle Ford and more than 5 percent in the Bakken.
In June, Marathon said Cazalot would retire at the end of the year and Tillman, who succeeded him as president and CEO on Aug. 1, would take up the leadership reins.
