Marathon Oil Corp.

NEW, Marathon Oil Corp. has retained Waterous & Co. and Goldman Sachs to sell its Pennaco Energy Inc. subsidiary, which operates coalbed-gas assets in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana. Marathon is the largest coalbed-gas acreage-holder in the Powder River Basin, with more than 650,000 net acres in north- east Wyoming and southeast Montana. Production averaged approximately 72 net million cubic feet of gas per day during first-quarter 2004. At year-end 2003, Marathon's total reserves in the Powder River Basin exceeded 2 trillion cubic feet of gas, of which 388 billion cubic feet were booked as proved. The sale would not include any of Marathon's conventional oil and gas upstream operations in Wyoming or Montana. For more information, contact Ward Polzin at 303-592-4301