Marathon Oil Is Poised to Benefit From Production Growth in U.S.

This article was originally published by TheStreet on August 07, 2014.

By Sarfaraz  A. Khan

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Marathon Oil's (MRO_) revenue fell in the second quarter, but a deeper look inside its earnings report reveals that the company is on track to post double-digit growth from its core assets in the U.S.

In announcing its second-quarter results on Monday, Marathon said revenue fell 1.6% to $2.94 billion, partly because of asset sales. But earnings from continuing operations rose almost 50% to $360 million on a 9.1% increase in sales volume from continuing operations, excluding Libya, and on higher oil prices in the U.S.

Furthermore, Commerce Department has recently allowed Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD_)and Enterprise Product Partners (EPD_) to export condensates, a type of ultra-light crude oil. The government had banned all exports of crude oil since the 1970s.

Shrinking Brent-WTI Spread: Why You Should Avoid These Midwest Refiners

From The Motley Fool
By Sarfaraz A. Khan

The Brent crude-West Texas Intermediate (WTI) spread has fallen to its lowest levels in more than two and a half years to $4.31 by the end of first week of June. This after touching this year’s peak of $23.19 in the first quarter, which shows a decline of more than 80%. The spread represents the difference between Europe’s Brent crude and the WTI crude, which trades at the New York Mercantile Exchange. This collapse of the difference between two of the world’s leading-traded crude grades will create problems for some refiners, such as HollyFrontier (NYSE: HFC), Marathon Petroleum (NYSE: MPC) and Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO).

The drop in the gap, shown in the picture above, is coming on the back of