Wednesday, Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO), revealed a definitive agreement with Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) owned Star Energy Group to sell its Irish subsidiary - Marathon Oil Ireland Ltd. for $180 million. The transaction is expected to close early in the first quarter of 2009. The agreement does not include Marathon's 18.5% interest in the Corrib natural gas development.
Commenting on the development, David Roberts, Marathon's Executive Vice President, Upstream said, "With the sale of Marathon Oil Ireland Limited, our global asset portfolio review and the resulting sale of non-core assets has generated nearly $1.2 billion in cash pretax. We anticipate that this program will generate $2 to 4 billion in cash pretax by mid-year 2009."
Marathon Oil added that the objective of the global review was to ensure its assets are fully aligned with its business strategy, making it well positioned to continue generating sustainable value growth.
Marathon Oil Ireland Limited's assets include a 100% operated interest in the Kinsale Head Area comprising Kinsale Head, South West Kinsale and the Ballycotton gas fields, as well as an 86.5% interest in the gas producing Seven Heads field which is tied back to Kinsale, and a 100% interest in gas storage business, with current capacity of 7 billion cubic feet. Current net production from these operations is approximately 36 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. As part of this transaction, Star Energy will retain the 61 Marathon Oil Ireland Limited employees in Ireland.
MRO is currently trading at $26.84, up $0.39 or 1.47% on a volume of 2.8 million shares on the NYSE.
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