Marathon Oil: To Drill Up to 145 Wells in Williston Basin in 2011 -- $1 Billion Investment -- North Dakota, USA

Updates

July 13, 2012: MRO -- 30-stage fractures now the norm. 

January 27, 2012: Marathon to increase dividend to 17 cents/share. 

November 29, 2011: Marathon Petroleum Company (MPC) is cheap -- SeekingAlpha.com.

July 31, 2011: MRO will re-frack 18 Bakken wells in 2011. 

July 26, 201l: Archived investing stories on MRO up to the date.

July 1, 2011: Effective this date, MRO (upstream) split from MPC (downstream)

Original Post

Link here.

Marathon Oil will significantly increase its exploration and production program in 2011.

Marathon Oil's 2011 CAPEX of $5.3 billion will include up to 145 wells to be drilled in the Bakken in North Dakota.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations: 145 wells x $6.5 million/well = $942 million, which can be rounded to $1 billion.  In comparison, MRO will spend a third of that ($300 million) on oil sands in Canada.

Interestingly enough, all this activity won't increase production all that much in the short term. In 2010, MRO produced 390,000 boepd on average; it is estimated that MRO will produce no more than 400,000 boepd in 2011, and could even drop to 380,000 boepd.

MRO has 385,000 net acres in the North Dakota Bakken.