Marathon Announces First Oil From Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Droshky Development


Marathon Oil Corporation announced that its Droshky development in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico has begun production on time and under budget.

Marathon owns a 100 percent working interest in Droshky, which is expected to produce approximately 50,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day at its peak, consisting of approximately 45,000 barrels per day of liquid hydrocarbons and 30 million cubic feet per day of natural gas.

Located in approximately 3,000 feet of water in Green Canyon Block 244, about 160 miles southwest of New Orleans, Droshky is a major subsea project consisting of four development wells tied back to the  third-party Bullwinkle platform with dual, 18-mile flowlines.

At a final development cost of less than $900 million, the initial stage of development is expected to produce 35 million of the estimated 60 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) net resource. Future expansion of the project and ultimate total recovery will largely depend upon well performance. At year-end 2009, Droshky had booked proved reserves of approximately 26 million boe.

“Droshky is an excellent example of our ongoing commitment to execute major projects on time and at competitive costs,” said Dave Roberts, Marathon’s executive vice president, Upstream.

“Specifically, it illustrates that Marathon can take a deepwater field from initial discovery to production in a little more than three years, and I’m proud of the many teams from across our Company that contributed to this milestone. Our safety and environmental performance, subsurface work and drilling and completion accomplishments were outstanding, and the result is a development that will contribute significant, profitable production and value to Marathon’s growing Upstream portfolio.”

Marathon is an integrated international energy company engaged in exploration and production; oil sands mining; integrated gas; and refining, marketing and transportation operations. Marathon, which is based in Houston, has principal operations in the United States, Angola, Canada, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Libya, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom. Marathon is the fourth largest United States-based integrated oil company and the nation’s fifth largest refiner.

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Source: Marathoncorp, July 19, 2010;