Reuters cited Marathon Petroleum chief executive Gary Heminger as saying to analysts that the company is planning to merge its 451,000 barrels per day (bpd) Galveston Bay refinery and its adjacent 84,000 bpd Texas City refinery.
Heminger said that the refineries will be merged from a process standpoint and construct one hydrotreater between them.
However, the specific timing details of the hydrotreater project were undisclosed.
Located on Galveston Bay, off the entrance to the Houston Ship Channel, the Galveston Bay refinery’s operations include crude distillation, hydrocracking, catalytic cracking, hydrotreating, reforming, alkylation, aromatics extraction, sulfur recovery and coking.
Operations of Texas City refinery include crude distillation, catalytic cracking, alkylation, reforming, aromatics extraction and sulfur recovery.
Marathon Petroleum is planning to boost its export capacity from 345,000 bpd last year to 400,000 bpd by the end of 2015, reports Reuters.
Earlier, the company unveiled its plan to strengthen Galveston Bay’s hydrotreating capacity, idle its oldest gasoline-making fluid catalytic cracking unit as well as boost export capabilities.
