Energy firm Det norske has agreed to purchase Marathon Oil Corp's Norwegian business for $2.1 billion in cash and has secured the financing needed to pay for its share of the $20 billion Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea, it said on Monday.Det norske, controlled by billionaire Kjell Inge Roekke, said the deal would increase its output by around 80,000 barrels a day, more than 20 times its current production, giving it stakes in 13 more licences with 10 operatorships.The deal transforms Det norske from an explorer with a heavy capital budget to a major producer with significant cashflow and also solves its financing problems, which have weighed on the shares as investors worried about how it would pay for developments like Sverdrup, the biggest North Sea find in decades."Adjusted for (contingent recourses), you come down to a price per barrel of around $17," said Oeyvind Hagen, an analyst at brokerage ABG Sundal Collier. "On a comparable basis we had assumed it to be around $15.8 per barrel. So this was on the higher end. They are not buying cheap barrels here."
Marathon Oil Corporation (Marathon Oil) is an international energy company engaged in exploration and production, oil sands mining and integrated gas with operations in the United States, Angola, Canada, Equatorial Guinea. Shares of MRO remained unchanged at $36.66. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $31.57 and as high as $38.18. On average, 6156460 shares of MRO exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 5427134.
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