Marathon Oil sells North Sea operations to RockRose for $140mn

Houston-headquartered Marathon Oil Company announced this morning that it has entered into an agreement with RockRose Energy for the sale of its UK businesses Marathon Oil UK and Marathon Oil West of Shetland Limited. RockRose will pay a total of US$140mn for Marathon Oil’s operations, and the transaction will represent a complete regional exit for the Texan company.

Marathon Oil UK holds a 37 to 40% operated interest in fields in the Greater Brae Area, and Marathon Oil West of Shetland controls 28% of the Foinaven Field unit and 47% in Foinaven East.

At the end of 2018, Marathon’s UK operations carried carried 21.4mn barrels of oil equivalent of proved reserves in the United Kingdom, and 2018 production averaged approximately 13,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

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"Today's announcement to divest our U.K. business represents our continued commitment to portfolio management and further concentrates our portfolio on high margin, high return U.S. resource plays," said Lee Tillman, Marathon Oil chairman, president and CEO. "I'd like to recognize the significant contributions of our UK employees – both current and past – who built and have operated the Brae Field for more than 30 years."

“This acquisition marks a major step change in the group’s reserves and production profile,” said Andrew Austin, RockRose executive chairman, according to the Financial Times. “Given the quality of these assets the board’s view is this is a good opportunity to make the transition to the role of operator.”