Marathon Oil (MRO)

Increases in crude oil prices and environmental regulations may reduce our refined product gross margins.

        The profitability of our refining, marketing and transportation operations depends largely on the margin between the cost of crude oil and other feedstocks that we refine and the selling prices we obtain for refined products. We are a net purchaser of crude oil. A significant portion of our crude oil is purchased from various foreign national oil companies, producing companies and trading companies, including suppliers from the Middle East. These purchases are subject to political, geographic and economic risks attendant to doing business with suppliers located in that area of the world. Our overall RM&T profitability could be adversely affected by the availability of supply and rising crude oil and other feedstock prices which we do not recover in the marketplace. Refined product gross margins historically have been volatile and vary with the level of economic activity in the various marketing areas, the regulatory climate, logistical capabilities and the available supply of refined products.

        In addition, environmental regulations, particularly the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, have imposed, and are expected to continue to impose, increasingly stringent and costly requirements on our refining, marketing and transportation operations, which may reduce our refined product gross margins.