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Marathon Oil finding ways to lower costs, continue exploration A truck-mounted rig for wells on the Kenai Peninsula to be operational this summer; company will participate in Unocal-drilled well from Steelhead platform Tracy Wilson PNA Staff Writer
Marathon Oil Co. is planning to bring a truck-mounted drilling rig from Tulsa, Okla., for use in an onshore drilling program that the company hopes will result in lower costs and a smaller environmental footprint.
John Miesse, Marathon’s Alaska oil and gas exploitation manager, said the rig is expected to be operational in July or August and that the company has contracted with Inlet Drilling to operate the rig and will be drilling three wells in the Kenai gas field through the rest of the year.
“The truck will allow us to do things we otherwise would not be able to do,” Miesse said. “We designed the rig especially for this environment.”
Two of the wells will target the Beluga formation; one will target Tyonek. All are grassroots wells.
Miesse also said Marathon is scheduled to work over one well in the Kenai gas field and one in the Cannery Loop field.
Offshore, Marathon will participate in a new development well to be drilled by Unocal this fall from the Steelhead platform. Marathon has a 51 percent interest; Unocal is the operator. The target is the Grayling gas sands, Miesse said. Pipeline planned for Wolf Lake Marathon operates or participates in seven gas fields in Cook Inlet. In November, the company found gas when it re-entered Wolf Lake No. 2, an old ARCO/CIRI exploratory well on Cook Inlet Regional Inc. land south of Marathon’s Swanson River field in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
The well has a 13,391-foot measured depth and a 13,039 -foot true vertical depth.
Miesse said an environmental impact statement for a pipeline from Wolf Lake No. 2 west to processing facilities at the Beaver Creek field is being drafted and the draft EIS will be released this summer. Miesse said he expects first production from the field sometime in 2001.
Marathon officials said 1998 financial data were not yet available.
In 1997, the company brought in $15.7 billion in revenues, down from the previous year’s $16.4 billion in revenues. Its 1997 income from operations, excluding special and other selected items, totaled $1.2 billion, up from $1.07 billion the year before.
Marathon’s 1997 capital expenditures totaled about $1.04 billion — up from $751 million in 1996. And the company spent $189 million for exploration, compared to $146 million in 1996.
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