Marathon Oil Corporation declares a $5.7 billion capital, investment and exploration budget for 2009, which represents a 24 percent decrease from 2008 capital spending of $7.6 billion. Marathon's 2008 capital spending was 5 percent less than the original $8 billion budget for the year.

"Marathon's 2009 capital program demonstrates a balanced approach that will maintain solid production performance, enhance our strong downstream business, and provide necessary capital investments in profitable mid- and long-term growth projects. Our balanced approach to investing is designed to maintain our solid financial position, deliver a competitive dividend, and enhance shareholder value," said Clarence P. Cazalot, Jr., Marathon president and CEO.

"With more constrained investment levels, as well as the completed and announced non-core asset sales, we now expect the combined production for 2011 from our upstream and oil sands mining segments to be approximately 450,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). This is a 7 percent compound average growth rate from our 2007 production level and 4 percent from our 2008 level, both also adjusted for announced asset sales," said Cazalot.

Marathon's 2009 worldwide exploration and production budget of $2.5 billion reflects a decrease of 26 percent over 2008 capital spending of $3.3 billion.

During 2009, Marathon expects to spend $1.1 billion on projects that will sustain and grow production in the short term. This includes funds for resource plays in the Bakken Shale and Piceance Basin, domestic oil and gas assets, and international projects such as development drilling in the U.K. Foinaven area and the Volund development in Norway. Approximately $850 million will be spent on projects that provide mid-term production growth, such as Droshky and Ozona in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, as well as emerging resource plays in the Marcellus and Woodford Shales. Funds in the amount of $480 million will be spent on long-term projects, such as the PSVM development on Angola Block 31 and the anticipated Gudrun development in Norway, as well as worldwide exploration spending in the Gulf of Mexico, Angola, Norway and Indonesia.

Marathon estimates 2009 production available for sale will be between 390,000 and 410,000 boepd, which excludes production from the announced sale of Marathon Oil Ireland Limited (MOIL) expected to close in the first quarter 2009, and excludes the effect of any acquisitions or additional dispositions. This compares to 2008 production available for sale, excluding the MOIL and Heimdal area production, of 372,000 boepd, for an expected production growth range of between 5 and 10 percent.

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