Marathon Oil Beats Estimates, Talks Up Acquisitions

Marathon Oil Corporation MRO released its Q2 results after market close on Wednesday. Earnings per share came in slightly above Wall Street consensus expectations.

Marathon reported EPS of $(0.23) and revenues of $1.302 billion. Analyst consensus had an EPS estimate of $(0.25) and revenues of $1.12 billion.

Marathon saw FY16 American production costs at $6-$7/barrel vs. prior of $7-$8/barrel and FY16 initial production costs $4.50-$5.50 vs. prior of $6.00-$5.00.

"Within six weeks of announcing our acquisition of high-quality assets in the STACK oil window, we've already closed the transaction and will accelerate an additional rig on this acreage in the third quarter while still decreasing our 2016 capital budget," said Marathon Oil President and CEO Lee Tillman.

"This deal expands our inventory and further positions Marathon Oil for growth in Oklahoma at a competitive valuation. Coupled with recent non-core divestitures, we're delivering on our objective to further concentrate our capital allocation to the lower cost, higher margin U.S. resource plays," stated Tillman.

At time of writing, Marathon traded at $13.38 in Wednesday's after-hours session.