Following a comprehensive report on its global operations and a review of its strategic future plans to shareholders, Marathon Oil Corporation has revealed its key areas of growth.

Three areas have been highlighted by the integrated energy company. These include unconventional oil and gas, deepwater and oil sands.

According to Marathon’s president and CEO Clarence Cazalot Jr, the company has invested heavily in a number of projects, including the Alvheim / Vilje and Volund offshore developments in Norway, oil sands mining in Canada, and the Garyville major expansion project in Louisiana, and is now hoping to reap the benefits of those moves.

In particular, the company has identified that its upstream business resources have tripled since 2001, with a resource life approaching 20 years. For the period 2008-2011, Marathon expects an upstream production compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 4%.

It has also outlined its focused exploration drilling programme for 2010, which includes three to four wells in the Gulf of Mexico, two high-risk, high-potential wells in Indonesia, and activity in Norway, Libya and Angola.