Praxair Inc., Danbury, Conn., has started up delivery of hydrogen to Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s 556,000-b/d refinery at Garyville, La., to support the operator’s previously announced ultralow-sulfur diesel (ULSD) project at the site.
Praxair is supplying hydrogen through a recently commissioned extension to its existing southeast Louisiana pipeline network, the industrial gas supplier said.
Marathon is using the hydrogen for processing related to its $120-million ULSD project at Garyville, which aims to boost the refinery’s production of ULSD by 10,000 b/d (OGJ Online, Jan. 23, 2017).
Praxair did not disclose the volume of hydrogen delivering to the refinery as part of the agreement.
As part of its refining and marketing capital program, Marathon also is investing about $200 million in the Garyville refinery to further increase coking capacity and ULSD production, with both projects scheduled to be completed in 2020, the operator said in its 2017 annual report to investors.
The Garyville coker expansion project is designed to enable Marathon to capitalize on the expected increase in demand for low-sulfur distillate arising from the International Maritime Organization’s new low-sulfur bunker fuel requirements that will take effect in 2020, according to the operator.
The Garyville refinery was scheduled to complete the final phase of its diesel maximization project to increase ULSD production—a key blending component for compliant bunker fuel—in early 2018.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
