Marathon to expand refinery in Detroit

[Anonymous]

HOUSTON — Marathon Oil Corp. said yesterday that its board approved a $1.9 billion expansion project that will allow its Detroit refinery to process heavy Canadian oil.

The expansion will increase the refinery’s crude-processing capabilities by 15 percent, to 115,000 barrels a day, and its ability to handle Canada’s heavy, tar-like oil by 80,000 barrels a day, the company said in a statement. The refinery will produce an additional 400,000 gallons of fuels a day.

Marathon, gained access to Canada’s heavy-oil deposits when it closed a $5.9 billion acquisition of Western Oil Sands Inc., of Calgary, last month.
 

[Charles Randall]

Here is an update on the MAP Detroit coker addition and refinery expansion to run Hvy Canadian crude – the $1.9 billion expansion was approved Wednesday Oct 31, 2007. Lot of credit for this MAP project moving forward lies with MAP acquisition of Western Oil sands last month (and its heavy crude production as article indicates) – too bad its also in Alberta where Royalties are going crazy.
 
Construction is due to start late this year or early in 2008 depending on speed of permit process – so I would lean toward early 2008 based on resistance of other projects. Crude volume increase will be about 15% – so the cost expansion+upgrade works out to be ~$22,000/BBL heavy crude charge which is at high end of range as all recent projects have been (but about half of what cost are for upgrader heavy crude project runs).

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