ENV-11-12 Lessons Learned During the Start-up of a Major Refinery Expansion

Description:

Marathon's Garyville Major Expansion project was one of the largest construction projects in the country. This four-year, $3.9 billion expansion was designed to help address America's growing energy needs. The expansion project, which is fully integrated with the original site, was completed in early 2010 and essentially doubled the capacity of the existing facility's production of 256,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) to 464,000 bpd. Safety and energy-efficiency were primary considerations in the design of the expansion, while flexibility was a key element in the permitting approach to this project. This paper summarizes the challenges of working on this project and presents examples of innovative approaches used to ensure the success of the expansion. Lessons learned and insights gained during the start-up of Marathon‟s Garyville Major Expansion are discussed with an emphasis on the area of environmental compliance. Although a few of the lessons are unique to the challenges presented during the simultaneous construction of multiple process units, most of the experiences are similar to those encountered during the construction or rebuilding of a single process unit.