Within a span of 12 days, Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) has signed on to create a 90,000 net-acre Delaware Basin position in two deals worth $1.8 billion.

Marathon said March 21 it agreed to pay $700 million in cash for a bolt-on acquisition of 21,000 net surface acres largely in the Northern Delaware of New Mexico from Black Mountain Oil & Gas and other private sellers.

Combined, the company has assembled 1,070 gross, risked operated locations and resource potential estimated at roughly half of a billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in the Permian.

The acquisition comes less than two weeks after Marathon entered the basin with a $1.1 billion deal for about 70,000 net surface acres from BC Operating Inc. and other entities. The BC deal included 51,500 acres in the same area as well as 18,500 acres in the Northwest Shelf.

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