Marathon Oil posted a $165 million profit for the third quarter that dipped 35 percent from a year ago.
The Houston oil and gas producer saw its revenues fall by nearly 20 percent as crude and natural gas prices have declined for much of the past 12 months.
The company’s oil production of 216,000 barrels per day jumped 14 percent from a year ago. Marathon touted new drilling successes in the Permian Basin’s western lobe, called the Delaware Basin, and improved returns in its more mature acreage in South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale and in North Dakota’s Bakken shale.
Marathon is slowly becoming more active in the Permian while continuing to lean on the Eagle Ford and Bakken for the bulk of its production volumes. Marathon also remains active in Oklahoma shale.
Without providing specific numbers, Chief Executive Lee Tillman said Marathon will cut back its spending in 2020 and allow its oil production growth to moderate.
“We’ll continue to be guided by our unwavering commitment to capital discipline and low break-even oil price to position Marathon Oil for success across a wide range of commodity price environments in 2020 and beyond,” Tillman said.
Despite ConocoPhillips recently opting to pull out of the prospective Louisiana Austin Chalk play because its test wells produced too much water, Marathon said Wednesday it isn’t giving up on the region.
Marathon said it continues to progress with exploration drilling and seismic data acquisition in southern Louisiana. Marathon said it also has taken on Norway-based Equinor as a partner in the Louisiana Austin Chalk to help fund the exploration activities.
This article first appeared on the Houston Chronicle – an Energy Voice content partner. For more from the Houston Chronicle click here.
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