Integrated oil company Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) has agreed to sell a portion of its Niobrara Shale-focused acreage to Marubeni Denver Julesburg, a subsidiary of Japan-based Marubeni Corp. for $270 million, or $5,000 per acre.

Marubeni will receive a 30% undivided working interest in Marathon’s 180,000 net acres in the DJ Basin of southeast Wyoming and northern Colorado.

As gas prices remain depressed, liquids-rich plays like the Bakken Shale, Eagle Ford Shale, and the Niobrara Shale continue to attract more attention and deal flow in the Niobrara is heating up. Technology used in the Bakken is being applied to Niobrara development in both the Denver Julesburg and Powder River basins.

According to a statement by Dave Roberts, Marathon's executive vice president, upstream, the company plans to do just that. "Our significant acreage position in the DJ Basin reinforces our strategy of targeting unconventional, oil-focused resource plays in the US that provide low-risk, scalable growth opportunities. It also allows us to apply expertise developed over the past several years in other unconventional shale plays such as the Bakken formation in North Dakota."

The company began leasing acreage in the DJ Basin in 2010. The company is currently acquiring 2-D and 3-D seismic data and expects to participate in eight to 12 gross exploration wells by the end of the year. Marathon will be operator of the jointly owned leasehold.

The transaction is expected to close by April 28, 2011.