Texas Green Blotter

Major Source Sunday is back! This weekend, we profile the Marathon Refinery in Texas City.

According to Marathon, the site was originally owned by the Republic Oil Refinery, which Marathon acquired in 1962. The Republic Oil Refinery was an important part of Texas City’s history; according to the Handbook of Texas, it was one of the first big operations in town, opening in 1931. The fire-fighting team from Republic was an important part of the crew (which also included the volunteer Fire Department) that accidentally touched off the Grandcamp powderkeg that led, by chain reaction, to the infamous 1947 Texas City Disaster. The explosion killed all firefighters present as well as about 500 others. Marathon refinery workers were also part of the mutual aid crew after the 2005 BPAmoco explosion next door.

Today, the Marathon refinery processes about 72,000 bpd of low-sulfur crude. The refinery employees about 260 people; according to the Annual Report, many of these employees are unionized. Houston-based Marathon is the fifth largest oil company in the world, and owns seven refineries in the United States. The Texas City refinery is ranked as the 79th largest refinery in the United States by capacity; it has about one-sixth the capacity of its big neighbor, BP Texas City.

The company’s “Living Our Values” report notes that four of Marathon’s refineries – including Texas City – have received EPA Energy Star awards, although Marathon’s downstream GHG emissions (which the company self-reports) have not decreased appreciably in recent years.

Marathon has received a number of awards for its environmental, health and safety operations, including recent awards from both the Galveston Bay Foundation and the Chemical Council of Texas. Its Web site describes two important ongoing environmental projects:

Marathon has committed to reduce the company-wide Energy Intensity Index (EII), a measure of energy efficiency, by 10 percent by 2012 over a 2002 baseline. The Texas City refinery alone will reduce EII 15 percent from the 2002 baseline by the year 2008.

The division will also reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx) by more than 600 tons per year from 2002 to 2009, through a series of projects that are part of the Houston-Galveston area’s State Implementation Plan for NOx reduction.

The STARS emission inventory for 2005 reports the following for Marathon:

• PM10: 111.4833 tons per year(tpy)
• PM 2.5: 85.225 tpy
• VOCs: 445.3572 tpy
• NOX: 827.0944 tpy
• SO2: 372.5309 tpy
• CO: 287.1926 tpy

The “Living Our Values” report notes “[t]he Texas City refinery installed new
equipment and technology in late 2006 that is expected to reduce NOx emissions
by more than 280 tons per year,” so the above-quoted figures may no longer be a fair representation of Marathon’s emission profile.

The EPA’s 2006 Toxic Release Inventory reports 137,589 pounds of toxic chemicals were released annually by Marathon Refinery.

TCEQ’s compliance history score is 5.96, or “Average.” This is somewhat better than BP and comparable to Valero (which will be covered next week).