Marathon Oil Corp., an international player in North Dakota's Bakken shale oil play, has added another 70,000 lease acres to its holdings.

The company announced Thursday that it completed the acquisition from Petroleum Development Corp.

Marathon had more than 200,000 acres under lease when it moved into North Dakota two years ago with plans to drill as many as 300 wells over the next several years.

Steven B. Hinchman, a senior official for Marathon, said the acquisition is a strategic fit for the company's North Dakota operations, because it can use its technology and drilling experience across a broader area in a domestic play. The new acres include some producing wells.

Marathon leased six new drill rigs specifically designed for piercing the Bakken shale formation. The formation is about 10,000 feet below surface and requires sophisticated techniques to fracture the oil bearing strata.

This new acreage brings the company's total Bakken's leases to more than 320,000 net acres in Billings, Divide, Dunn, McKenzie, Mountrail and Williams counties in North Dakota, and Richland County in Montana.

- Lauren Donovan