Marathon Oil Corp. intends to compete against mammoth multinational oil companies by adopting a business model that takes advantage of its smaller size, says Clarence Cazalot, the Houston-based oil company's president and chief executive officer. It will do this by "linking our technical strength, commercial skills and international stature with a willingness to do things differently, and to do so with the speed and agility of a small enterprise," Cazalot told Wall Street oil analysts at a recent investment conference. Marathon was recently spun off from parent USX Corp. In the North Sea, Marathon plans to lead an initiative for a new pipeline to provide additional gas to the Centrica Plc, a U.K. gas producer and marketer, has agreed to support the project as a potential purchaser of the gas. Marathon also plans a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification and power-generation project near Tijuana, Mexico. The North Sea gas system could begin to operate in 2005. Cazalot calls it another example of Marathon's strategy to develop innovative energy solutions and unique partnerships. The LNG project in Baja California would be capable of regasifying up to 750 million cubic feet per day of LNG for local use as well as for export to southern California. In addition, a 400-megawatt power plant would be constructed, and the electricity would be sold to the local and southern California markets. -Petroleum Finance Week