Commitments and Contingencies

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2019

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

Commitments and Contingencies

Commitments and Contingencies

Following the sale of our U.K. business to RockRose, we continue to have surety bonds outstanding that guarantee our decommissioning liabilities related to the MOUK assets. We issued these surety bonds in November 2018 with a notional value of approximately £92 million and an expiration date of December 31, 2019. RockRose is contractually required to post a replacement security to cover 2020 by no later than December 1, 2019. If RockRose is unable to post a replacement security by December 1, 2019, the counterparties of our existing surety bonds have the right to submit a demand notice against our surety bonds. In order to mitigate this exposure, we have secured surety bonds from RockRose issued in favor of Marathon for the full amount of £92 million. As of September 30, 2019, RockRose had not posted a replacement security and we recognized a liability and corresponding expense of approximately $6 million related to the estimated fair value of our exposure to these surety bonds. Should RockRose post a replacement security, we will derecognize our $6 million other current liability and record income of a corresponding amount. See Note 5 for discussion of the U.K. sale in further detail.

In the second quarter of 2019, Marathon E.G. Production Limited (“MEGPL”), a consolidated and wholly-owned subsidiary, signed a series of agreements to process third-party Alen Unit gas through existing infrastructure located in Punta Europa, E.G. MEGPL is a signatory to the agreements related to our equity method investee, Alba Plant LLC. These agreements contain clauses that cause MEGPL to indemnify the owners of the Alen Unit against actions or inaction by Alba Plant LLC. Pursuant to these agreements, MEGPL agreed to indemnify third party property or events, including environmental assessments, injury to Alba Plant LLC’s personnel, and damage to or loss of Alba Plant LLC’s automobiles. At this time, we cannot reasonably estimate this obligation as we do not have any history of prior indemnification claims, as completion of the plant modifications is not expected to finish until 2021, and as such, we do not have any history of environmental discharge or contamination. Therefore, we have not recorded a liability with respect to these indemnification clauses since the amount of potential future payments under such guarantees is not determinable.

In the fourth quarter of 2017, the U.K. tax authorities challenged the deductibility for certain Brae area decommissioning costs, which we claimed for U.K. corporation tax purposes. The dispute related to the timing of the deduction and did not dispute the general deductibility of decommissioning costs. In accordance with U.K. regulations, we paid the amount of tax and interest in question, approximately $108 million, and filed our appeal. In the first quarter of 2019, we withdrew our appeal on this matter, and the corresponding revisions to current and deferred tax liabilities have no cumulative adverse earnings impact on our consolidated results of operations.

We are continuously undergoing examination of our U.S. federal income tax returns by the IRS. With the closure of the 2010-2011 IRS Audit referenced in Note 8, these audits have been completed through the 2016 tax year with the exception of the following item. During the third quarter of 2017, we received a partnership adjustment notification related to the 2010 and 2011 tax years, for which we filed a Tax Court Petition in the fourth quarter of 2017. During the third quarter of 2019, we received the court decision which ruled in our favor for all material items. The IRS is in the process of preparing the final reports for the 2010 and 2011 tax years.

We are a defendant in a number of legal and administrative proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business including, but not limited to, royalty claims, contract claims, tax disputes and environmental claims. While the ultimate outcome and impact to us cannot be predicted with certainty, we believe the resolution of these proceedings will not have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial position, results of operations or cash flows. 

We have incurred and will continue to incur capital, operating and maintenance, and remediation expenditures as a result of environmental laws and regulations. If these expenditures, as with all costs, are not ultimately offset by the prices we receive for our products and services, our operating results will be adversely affected. We believe that substantially all of our competitors must comply with similar environmental laws and regulations. However, the specific impact on each competitor may vary depending on a number of factors, including the age and location of its operating facilities, marketing areas and production processes. These laws generally provide for control of pollutants released into the environment and require responsible parties to undertake remediation of hazardous waste disposal sites. Penalties may be imposed for noncompliance.