UNION TEXAS TO ENTER PLAY BETWEEN IRELAND, WALES

Feb. 13, 1995
UTP's New Acreage Acqusition (39355 bytes) Union Texas Petroleum Ltd. (UTPL) has agreed to enter an exploration play in the St. George's Channel frontier between Ireland and Wales.

UTP's New Acreage Acqusition (39355 bytes)

Union Texas Petroleum Ltd. (UTPL) has agreed to enter an exploration play in the St. George's Channel frontier between Ireland and Wales.

A wildcat is to spud in the second quarter on acreage in which UTPL will acquire an interest from license holders Marathon Petroleum Ireland Ltd. (MPI) and Marathon Petroleum Hibernia Ltd. (MPH). The Marathon units agreed to farm out a 25% interest in their 345,000 acre spread to UTPL, a unit of Union Texas Petroleum Holdings Inc., Houston. Operator MPI and MPH will retain equal interests in the remaining 75% interest.

Other terms of the farmout were not disclosed. The deal is subject to approval by Ireland's transportation, energy, and communications ministry.

Covered in the deal are all of Blocks 41/25, 42/21, 41/29, 41/30, and 50/4 and the south half of Block 41/28.

The acreage lies in 200-300 ft of water.

Marathon has acquired about 2,100 km of seismic data over the St. George's Channel acreage.

Another Marathon unit, Marathon Oil U.K., tested a gas discovery last year at its Block 103/1-1 wildcat 5 miles southeast of the farmout acreage (see map, OGJ, Nov. 7,1994, P. 35).

SPENDING PLANS

Meantime, the Marathon Group of USX Corp. said early this month it plans to spend about $143 million worldwide in 1995 exploring for oil and gas, part of an $832 million total capital budget. Marathon's exploration spending in 1994 amounted to $135 million out of a capital budget of $856 million. The group's worldwide upstream development spending this year is to reach $126 million, including $53 million in the North Sea.

UTPL early this month disclosed it expects 1995 exploration capital spending to amount to about $74 million, including at least nine exploratory wells on new prospects in Alaska, Argentina, Viet Nam, and eastern Indonesia and as many as 20 wildcats in exploration programs in the U.K. North Sea, Indonesia, and Pakistan.

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