Marathon Oil in North America, including $600 million in the Eagle Ford and $200 million in the Bakken formation. The company owns 277,000 net acres in the Bakken formation. Marathon began as The Ohio Oil Company in 1887. In 1889, it was purchased by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. It remained a part of Standard Oil until Standard Oil was broken in 1911. In 1930, The Ohio Oil Company bought the Transcontinental Oil Company and established the "Marathon" brand name. In 1962, the company changed its name to "Marathon Oil Company". In 1982, Mobil made a hostile offer to buy the company;
Standard Oil of Ohio acquired 5,660 former Gulf stations as a result of FTC anti-trust limitations in Chevron's 1985 takeover of Gulf. These stations, bought for $1 billion, were in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. Sohio was allowed to use the "Gulf" name for five years after the acquisition. In 1987, after all other Standard Oil descendants had minimized use of the name "Standard", Standard of Ohio, proud to be the original corporate component of Standard Oil, sought to corporately rebrand itself under the Standard name, while continuing to use the "Sohio" brand in Ohio. However, later that year