Marathon: 50 years in Alaska - Introduction from Petroleum News

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief

Marathon Oil has been in Alaska for 50 years. This special section contains photos of some of Marathon’s activities in the Cook Inlet basin, and some highlights of the company’s work on the Kenai Peninsula and offshore in Cook Inlet.

Over the years Marathon has gone from leaseholder to explorer to oil and gas producer and partner in the first liquefied natural gas plant in the United States. Marathon focused its interests on natural gas in the 1990s, selling off its oil production, and concentrating on the natural gas market. In addition to supplying some of the gas to the liquefied natural gas plant at Nikiski, a business in which Marathon partners with ConocoPhillips, Marathon also supplies more than half of the natural gas for Southcentral Alaska utilities.

Marathon is focused on maximizing production from its existing natural gas fields, and invented the Excape completion technology for Beluga formation gas sands at its Kenai field, allowing it to produce gas not previously thought economic.

The company also had a truck-mounted drilling rig purpose built for its Kenai Peninsula development and exploration drilling, although it used a larger rig in its recent successful multi-lateral Kasilof exploration well.