Marathon
second discovery offshore Norway
Posted: 28 May 2003
Marathon Oil Corporation, through its wholly-owned subsidiary,
Marathon Petroleum Norge A/S, announced an oil discovery, with a
gas column, on the company- operated Boa 24/6-4 well.
The discovery well is located in the Marathon operated production
license (PL) 088BS, which is approximately 140 miles (225 kilometers)
west of Stavanger, Norway, in 400 feet (121 meters) of water on
the Norwegian continental shelf.
"Our Norwegian exploration drilling program continues to show
positive results, with the first two wells exceeding expectations,"
said Philip Behrman, Marathon senior vice president of Worldwide
Exploration. "Results from these first two wells move us another
step closer to a potential West of Heimdal commercial development
and our ability to deliver profitable growth from this Marathon
core area."
Located approximately 4.5 miles (7.3 kilometers) northwest of the
recently announced Kneler discovery, the Boa well was drilled into
the Heimdal formation to a total depth of 7,531 feet (2,296 meters)
below sea level utilizing the Deep Sea Bergen semi-submersible rig.
The well encountered a 174 foot (53 meters) gross hydrocarbon column,
with 82 gross feet (25 meters) of gas on top of 92 gross feet (28
meters) of oil in high quality sands. Extensive down-hole samples,
core and wireline logs were collected for further analysis.
Preliminary results show that the oil is a high quality 36-degree
API gravity. The next exploration well to be drilled is on the nearby
Marathon operated Gekko prospect in PL203, which also will target
the Heimdal formation.
The PL088BS group includes Marathon as operator with a 50-percent
working interest and TOTAL E&P Norge AS with the remaining 50
percent.
Currently, the PL203 group, which includes Marathon as operator
with a 65-percent working interest, ConocoPhillips with a 20-percent
interest and DNO with the remaining 15 percent, have a purchase
and sales agreement in place with TOTAL E&P to acquire TOTAL
E&P's interest in the newly created PL 088BS license, pending
approval from the Norwegian authorities. Upon such approval, the
ownership interests in PL 088BS and PL 203 will be 65 percent Marathon
(operator), 20 percent ConocoPhillips and 15 percent DNO.
For more information see www.marathon.com.

Posted by Richard Price,
Editor Pipeline Magazine
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