Marathon Oil Corp.’s first-quarter profit rose 2 percent. The company earned $731 million, or $1.02 per share, in the January-March period compared with $717 million, or $1.03 per share, for the same quarter in 2007.
Revenue jumped 39 percent to $18.1 billion from $13 billion last year.
Excluding one-time items, Marathon posted an adjusted profit of $767 [...]

Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit tallied up some key numbers for the oil and gas sector in 2007. He found market capitalization for the group at year-end was $1.617 trillion, led by Exxon Mobil Corp. with $481 billion — close to a third of the group total.
Gheit says group net income dropped to $146 [...]

Oil and gas explorer Anadarko Petroleum Corp. enjoyed sizable profits this year, bolstered by higher gasoline prices and blockbuster acquisitions, but its stock lagged because of higher debt.
The Woodlands, Texas-based company, with a market capitalization of $20.07 billion, goes up against larger competitors like BP PLC, ConocoPhillips, and Exxon Mobil Corp. in the exploration, development, [...]

Canada’s Encana Corp. and U.S. oil giant ConocoPhillips said on Thursday they would form a partnership to combine two of EnCana’s oil sands projects with two ConocoPhillips refineries.
The companies said together they plan to spend about $10.7 billion to raise production at Encana’s oil sands fields and expand capacity at the ConocoPhillips refineries over the [...]