Marathon Petroleum Profile
Marathon Petroleum Corporation operates as an integrated, downstream energy company.
The company operates one of the nation's largest refining systems with approximately 3.0 million barrels per day of crude oil refining capacity. The company operates as a wholesale supplier of gasoline and distillates to resellers in the United States.
The company distributes its refined products through one of the largest terminal operations in the United States and one of the largest private domestic fleets of inland petroleum product barges. In addition, the company’s integrated midstream energy asset network links producers of natural gas and NGLs from some of the largest supply basins in the United States to domestic and international markets.
Segments
The company operates through two segments, Refining & Marketing and Midstream.
Refining & Marketing segment
This segment refines crude oil and other feedstocks, including renewable feedstocks, at the company’s refineries in the Gulf Coast, Mid-Continent and West Coast regions of the United States, purchases refined products and ethanol for resale and distributes refined products, including renewable diesel, through transportation, storage, distribution and marketing services provided largely by its Midstream segment. The company sells refined products to wholesale marketing customers domestically and internationally, to buyers on the spot market, to independent entrepreneurs who operate primarily Marathon branded outlets and through long-term supply contracts with direct dealers who operate locations mainly under the ARCO brand.
Refineries
The company owns and operates refineries in the Gulf Coast, Mid-Continent and West Coast regions of the United States with an aggregate crude oil refining capacity of 2,950 Thousand barrels per calendar day (mbpcd). During 2023, the company’s refineries processed 2,677 mbpd of crude oil and 237 mbpd of other charge and blendstocks.
The company’s refineries include crude oil atmospheric and vacuum distillation, fluid catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, catalytic reforming, coking, desulfurization and sulfur recovery units. The refineries process a wide variety of condensate and light and heavy crude oils purchased from various domestic and foreign suppliers. The company produces numerous refined products, ranging from transportation fuels, such as reformulated gasolines, blend-grade gasolines intended for blending with ethanol and ULSD fuel, to heavy fuel oil and asphalt. Additionally, the company manufactures NGLs and petrochemicals and propane.
Gulf Coast Region (1,228 mbpcd)
Galveston Bay, Texas City, Texas Refinery (631 mbpcd)
The company’s Galveston Bay refinery is a combination of its former Texas City refinery and Galveston Bay refinery. Following the completion of the STAR project in 2023, which added 40 mbpcd of capacity, it is now its largest refinery. The refinery is located on the Texas Gulf Coast southeast of Houston, Texas and can process a wide variety of crude oils into gasoline, distillates, NGLs and petrochemicals, heavy fuel oil and propane. The refinery has access to the export market and multiple options to sell refined products. The company’s cogeneration facility, which supplies the Galveston Bay refinery, has 1,055 megawatts of electrical production capacity and can produce 4.3 million pounds of steam per hour. Approximately 49 percent of the power generated in 2023 was used at the refinery, with the remaining electricity being sold into the electricity grid.
Garyville, Louisiana Refinery (597 mbpcd)
The company’s Garyville refinery is located along the Mississippi River in southeastern Louisiana between New Orleans, Louisiana and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Garyville refinery is configured to process a wide variety of crude oils into gasoline, distillates, NGLs and petrochemicals, propane, asphalt and heavy fuel oil. The refinery has access to the export market and multiple options to sell refined products. The company’s Garyville refinery has earned designation as an OSHA VPP Star site.
Mid-Continent Region (1,170 mbpcd)
Catlettsburg, Kentucky Refinery (300 mbpcd)
The company’s Catlettsburg refinery is located in northeastern Kentucky on the western bank of the Big Sandy River, near the confluence with the Ohio River. The Catlettsburg refinery processes sweet and sour crude oils, including production from the nearby Utica Shale, into gasoline, distillates, asphalt, NGLs and petrochemicals, propane and heavy fuel oil. The company’s Catlettsburg refinery has earned designation as an OSHA VPP Star site.
Robinson, Illinois Refinery (253 mbpcd)
The company’s Robinson refinery is located in southeastern Illinois. The Robinson refinery processes sweet and sour crude oils into gasoline, distillates, NGLs and petrochemicals, propane and heavy fuel oil. The Robinson refinery has earned designation as an OSHA VPP Star site.
Detroit, Michigan Refinery (140 mbpcd)
The company’s Detroit refinery is located in southwest Detroit. It is the only petroleum refinery operating in Michigan. The Detroit refinery processes sweet and heavy sour crude oils into gasoline, distillates, NGLs and petrochemicals, asphalt, propane and heavy fuel oil. The company’s Detroit refinery has earned designation as an OSHA VPP Star site.
El Paso, Texas Refinery (133 mbpcd)
The company’s El Paso refinery is located east of downtown El Paso. The El Paso refinery processes sweet and sour crude oils into gasoline, distillates, heavy fuel oil, asphalt, propane and NGLs and petrochemicals.
St. Paul Park, Minnesota Refinery (105 mbpcd)
The company’s St. Paul Park refinery is located along the Mississippi River southeast of St. Paul Park. The St. Paul Park refinery processes sweet and heavy sour crude oils into gasoline, distillates, asphalt, propane, NGLs and petrochemicals and heavy fuel oil.
Canton, Ohio Refinery (100 mbpcd)
The company’s Canton refinery is located south of Cleveland, Ohio. The Canton refinery processes sweet and sour crude oils, including production from the nearby Utica Shale, into gasoline, distillates, asphalt, propane, NGLs and petrochemicals and heavy fuel oil. The Canton refinery has earned designation as an OSHA VPP Star site.
Mandan, North Dakota Refinery (71 mbpcd)
The company’s Mandan refinery is located outside of Bismarck, North Dakota. The Mandan refinery processes primarily sweet domestic crude oil from North Dakota into gasoline, distillates, heavy fuel oil, propane and NGLs and petrochemicals.
Salt Lake City, Utah Refinery (68 mbpcd)
The company’s Salt Lake City refinery is the largest in Utah and is located north of downtown Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake City refinery processes crude oil from Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Canada into gasoline, distillates, heavy fuel oil, propane and NGLs and petrochemicals.
West Coast Region (552 mbpcd)
Los Angeles, California Refinery (365 mbpcd)
The company’s Los Angeles refinery is located in Los Angeles County, near the Los Angeles Harbor. The Los Angeles refinery is the largest refinery on the West Coast and is a major producer of cleaner burning CARB fuels. The Los Angeles refinery processes heavy crude oil from California’s San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles Basin, as well as crude oils from the Alaska North Slope, South America, West Africa and other international sources, into CARB gasoline and CARB diesel fuel, as well as conventional gasoline, distillates, NGLs and petrochemicals, heavy fuel oil and propane.
Anacortes, Washington Refinery (119 mbpcd)
The company’s Anacortes refinery is located north of Seattle on Puget Sound. The Anacortes refinery processes Canadian crude oil, domestic crude oil from North Dakota and the Alaska North Slope and international crude oils into gasoline, distillates, heavy fuel oil, propane and NGLs and petrochemicals.
Kenai, Alaska Refinery (68 mbpcd)
The company’s Kenai refinery is located on the Cook Inlet, southwest of Anchorage. The Kenai refinery processes mainly Alaska domestic crude oil, domestic crude oil from North Dakota, along with limited international crude oil into distillates, gasoline, heavy fuel oil, propane, asphalt and NGLs and petrochemicals.
Planned maintenance activities, or turnarounds, requiring temporary shutdown of certain refinery operating units, are periodically performed at each refinery.
Crude Oil Supply
The company obtains the crude oil it refines through negotiated term contracts and purchases or exchanges on the spot market. The crude oil sourced outside of North America was acquired from various foreign national oil companies, production companies and trading companies.
Renewable Fuels
The Martinez Renewable Fuels joint venture (the Martinez Renewables joint venture), included within the West Coast region, is a partnership structured as a 50/50 joint venture with Neste Corporation to convert the Martinez facility from refining petroleum to refining renewable feedstocks. The Martinez Renewables facility, which has a design capacity of 730 million gallons per year, including pretreatment capabilities, began ramping up production of renewable diesel in 2023.
The company holds a 49.9 percent ownership interest in ethanol production facilities in Albion, Michigan; Logansport, Indiana; Greenville, Ohio and Denison, Iowa. These plants have a combined ethanol production capacity of approximately 405 million gallons per year and are managed by the company’s joint venture partner, The Andersons, Inc. (The Andersons).
The Dickinson, North Dakota, renewable fuels facility, within the Mid-Continent region, has the capacity to produce 184 million gallons per year of renewable diesel from corn oil, soybean oil, fats and greases. The produced renewable diesel generates federal RINs and LCFS credits when sold in California or similar markets. These instruments are used to help meet the company’s Renewable Fuel Standard and LCFS compliance obligations as a petroleum fuel producer. The Refining & Marketing segment sells transportation fuels through long-term fuel supply contracts to direct dealer locations, primarily under the ARCO brand.
The company formed a joint venture with Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) for the production of soybean oil to supply rapidly growing demand for renewable diesel fuel. The joint venture, which is named Green Bison Soy Processing, LLC (Green Bison Soy Processing), owns and operates a soybean processing complex in Spiritwood, North Dakota, with ADM owning 75 percent of the joint venture and MPC owning 25 percent. The Spiritwood facility sources and processes local soybeans and supplies the resulting soybean oil exclusively to MPC. The Spiritwood complex, which began operations in 2023, is expected to produce approximately 600 million pounds of refined soybean oil annually, enough feedstock for approximately 75 million gallons of renewable diesel per year.
In 2023, the company acquired a 49.9 percent equity interest in LF Bioenergy, an emerging producer of renewable natural gas (RNG) in the U.S. LF Bioenergy has been focused on developing and growing a portfolio of dairy farm-based, low carbon intensity RNG projects. Projects are under various stages of development, with the first facility reaching full commercial operation in the first half of 2023.
The company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Virent Inc. (Virent), operates an advanced biofuels facility in Madison, Wisconsin at which it is working to commercialize a process for converting biobased feedstocks into renewable fuels and chemicals. During 2023, Virent continued to advance its BioForming technology to commercialization with demonstration activities in the aviation industry.
Refined Product Sales
The company’s refined products are sold to independent retailers, wholesale customers, its brand jobbers and direct dealers. In addition, the company sells refined products for export to international customers. As of December 31, 2023, there were 7,217 brand jobber outlets in 39 states, the District of Columbia and Mexico where independent entrepreneurs primarily maintain Marathon-branded outlets. The company also has long-term supply contracts for 1,114 direct dealer locations primarily in Southern California, largely under the ARCO brand. The company is one of the largest wholesale suppliers of gasoline and distillates to resellers and consumers within its market area.
Gasoline and Distillates
The company sells gasoline, gasoline blendstocks and distillates (including No. 1 and No. 2 fuel oils, jet fuel, kerosene, diesel and renewable diesel) to wholesale customers, branded jobbers, direct dealers and in the spot market. In addition, the company sells diesel fuel and gasoline for export to international customers. The demand for gasoline and distillates is seasonal in many of the company’s markets, with demand typically at its highest levels during the summer months.
NGLs and Petrochemicals
The company is a producer and marketer of NGLs and petrochemicals. Product availability varies by refinery and includes, among others, propylene, butane, xylene, benzene, cumene and toluene. The company markets these products domestically to customers in the chemical, agricultural and fuel-blending industries. In addition, the company produces fuel-grade coke at its Garyville, Detroit, Galveston Bay and Los Angeles refineries, which is used for power generation and in miscellaneous industrial applications, and anode-grade coke at its Los Angeles and Robinson refineries, which is used to make carbon anodes for the aluminum smelting industry.
Asphalt
The company has refinery-based asphalt production capacity of 143 mbpcd, which includes asphalt cements, polymer-modified asphalt, emulsified asphalt, industrial asphalts and roofing flux. The company has a broad customer base, including asphalt-paving contractors, resellers, government entities (states, counties, cities and townships) and asphalt roofing shingle manufacturers. The company sells asphalt in the domestic and export wholesale markets via rail, barge and vessel.
Propane
The company produces propane at all of its refineries. Propane is primarily used for home heating and cooking, as a feedstock within the petrochemical industry, for grain drying and as a fuel for trucks and other vehicles. The company’s propane sales are split approximately 80 percent and 20 percent between the home heating market and industrial/petrochemical consumers, respectively.
Heavy Fuel Oil
The company produces and markets heavy residual fuel oil or related components, including slurry, at all of its refineries. Heavy residual fuel oil is primarily used in the utility and ship bunkering (fuel) industries, though there are other more specialized uses of the product.
Terminals and Transportation
The company transports, stores and distributes crude oil, feedstocks and refined products through pipelines, terminals and marine fleets owned by MPLX and third parties in its market areas.
The company owns a fleet of transport trucks and trailers for the movement of refined products and crude oil. In addition, the company maintains a fleet of leased and owned railcars for the movement and storage of refined products.
Midstream segment
This segment gathers, transports, stores and distributes crude oil, refined products, including renewable diesel, and other hydrocarbon-based products principally for the Refining & Marketing segment via refining logistics assets, pipelines, terminals, towboats and barges; gathers, processes and transports natural gas; and transports, fractionates, stores and markets NGLs. The Midstream segment primarily reflects the results of MPLX. MPLX is a diversified, large-cap master limited partnership (MLP) that owns and operates midstream energy infrastructure and logistics assets and provides fuels distribution services. As of December 31, 2023, the company owned the general partner of MPLX and approximately 65 percent of the outstanding MPLX common units.
The Midstream segment primarily includes the operations of MPLX, the company’s sponsored MLP, and certain related operations retained by MPC.
MPLX
MPLX owns and operates a network of crude oil, natural gas and refined product pipelines and has joint ownership interests in crude oil, refined products and other pipelines. MPLX also owns and operates light products terminals, storage assets and maintains a fleet of owned and leased towboats and barges in support of fuels distribution on behalf of MPC. MPLX’s assets also include natural gas gathering systems and natural gas processing and NGL fractionation complexes.
MPC-Retained Midstream Assets and Investments
The company owns four Jones Act product tankers, have ownership interests in several crude oil and refined products pipeline systems and pipeline companies and have an indirect ownership interest in an ocean vessel joint venture through its investment in Crowley Coastal Partners LLC.
Regulatory Matters
The company’s operations are subject to numerous laws and regulations, including those relating to the protection of the environment. Such laws and regulations include, among others, the Clean Air Act (CAA) with respect to air emissions, the Clean Water Act (CWA) with respect to water discharges, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) with respect to solid and hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) with respect to releases and remediation of hazardous substances and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA-90) with respect to oil pollution and response.
Some of the company’s existing pipelines are considered interstate common carrier pipelines subject to regulation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) under the Interstate Commerce Act (the ICA), Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct 1992) and the rules and regulations promulgated under those laws.
The company’s rates for interstate transportation service in effect for the 365-day period ending on the date of the passage of EPAct 1992 were deemed just and reasonable and therefore are grandfathered. Subsequent changes to those rates are not grandfathered.
The company maintains numerous discharge permits as required under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program of the CWA and have implemented systems to oversee its compliance with these permits. In addition, the company is regulated under OPA-90, which, among other things, requires the owner or operator of a tank vessel or a facility to maintain an emergency plan to respond to releases of oil or hazardous substances. The company has implemented emergency oil response plans for all of its components and facilities covered by OPA-90 and it has established Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasures plans for all facilities subject to such requirements. Some coastal states in which the company operates has passed state laws similar to OPA-90.
As part of the company’s emergency response activities, it has used aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) chemicals as a vapor and fire suppressant. The company is subject to oversight pursuant to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, as amended (OSH Act), as well as comparable state statutes that regulate the protection of the health and safety of workers.
The company is also subject at regulated facilities to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Process Safety Management (PSM) and EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) requirements, which are intended to prevent or minimize the consequences of catastrophic releases of toxic, reactive, flammable or explosive chemicals.
The DOT has adopted safety regulations with respect to the design, construction, operation, maintenance, inspection and management of the company’s pipeline assets.
Various federal agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Interior, along with certain Native American tribes, promulgate and enforce regulations pertaining to oil and gas operations on Native American tribal lands where the company operates.
Trademarks, Patents and Licenses
The company’s Marathon and ARCO trademarks are material to the conduct of its refining and marketing operations. The company holds a number of the U.S. and foreign patents and have various pending patent applications.
History
Marathon Petroleum Corporation was founded in 1887. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 2009.
