OREANDA-NEWS. Marathon Oil is selling a majority of its US Gulf of Mexico (GoM) assets for $205mn as a plunge in crude prices squeeze cash inflows.

A year of weak crude prices that saw the market plunge to six-and-a-half-year lows and a bleak outlook has forced almost every US independent producer including ConocoPhillips, Continental Resources and Hess to announce a host of measures aimed to shore up their balance sheets. For Marathon Oil, those include sharply lowering its quarterly dividend, paring next year's capital expenditure (capex) by nearly 30pc and selling assets that are no longer core to operations.

The independent is selling its 65pc stake in the greater Ewing Bank area, in which it was the operator. It also sold its non-operating 50pc stake in the Petronius field, and a 30pc non-operating interest in Neptune. Marathon Oil didn't disclose the buyer.

"These assets represent a majority of the company's operated and non-operated producing properties in the Gulf of Mexico," it said.

Marathon Oil will retain its interest in the Gunflint development, where it holds a non-operating 18pc, and its non-operating 10pc interest in the Shenandoah discovery.

The company's GoM and other conventional onshore US output fell to 35,000 b/d in the third quarter from 38,000 b/d a year earlier. The decline offset a gain made at its shale acreage in the Bakken in North Dakota, to 53,000 b/d from 50,000 b/d a year earlier. That resulted in overall North American output holding at 166,000 b/d for those three months, unchanged from a year earlier.

The independent late last month said capex for 2016 will be cut by 29pc to $2.2bn, compared with $3.1bn in 2015, just to maintain output "flat to 2015 exit rate," chief executive Lee Tillman had said. This year's figure is $200mn lower than an earlier target.

It cut its dividend by 76pc to 5?/share from its previous quarterly dividend of 21?/share, saving more than $425mn in free cash flow. It also said it is advancing a plan to divest at least $500mn of non-core assets.

Marathon Oil last week reported a net loss of $749mn in the third quarter compared with a profit of $431mn a year earlier.