-ExxonMobil has restricted non-essential travel to Liberia and Nigeria amid growing fears over the global spread of the Ebola virus. Via the Houston Business Journal, ExxonMobil rotated non-Liberian employees out of Liberia over the summer. The travel restrictions may interfere with ExxonMobil's plans to drill the first offshore well in Liberia. Its Nigerian drilling operations have not been affected.
-The federal government will put nearly 44 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico up for lease in March. Via the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the lease sale will include more than 7,000 lease blocks covering 43.5 million acres off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The sale will also include leases along the U.S.-Mexico nautical border.
-Marathon Oil completed the sale of its Norway operations to Det norske oljeselskap ASA for $2.7 billion. The sale includes the operated Alvheim floating production, storage and offloading vessel, 10 company-operated licenses and a number of non-operated licenses in the North Sea. Average daily production in 2013 was 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent. Marathon Oil CEO Lee Tillman said selling the Norway assets was among the firm’s strategic priorities in 2014.
-Western Refining Logistics closed on the acquisition of Western Refining’s southwest wholesale business. The deal was first announced last month. The acquired assets include fuel sales to third-party customers, oil trucking operations in the Permian and San Juan basins and a lubricant products distribution business.
-Natural gas well completions increased 3% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2014, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Total gas drilling to date in 2014 was steady over last year due to a decrease in the third quarter of 2014. Total oil well drilling in 2014 has been relatively flat when compared to last year, but exploratory wells increased 12% in the third quarter of this year.
