Marathon Garyville Refinery Expansion

Fluor performed extensive engineering, procurement and construction work for Marathon's Garyville refinery expansion. The expansion converted the refinery from a fuel oils plant to major gasoline production.

The conversion more than doubled the facilities production of high octane gasoline components from 45,000 to 100,000 barrels per day.

Client's Challenge

The project was one of the first to use distributed control and used the Honeywell TDC 2000 system. Four Honeywell TDC 2000 satellite control buildings were installed to provide control at the local unit level. These were connected to coax data highways and tied into a central Honeywell 4500 computer system at the main control room.

Fluor's Solution

A total of twelve process units were installed at the site, including a 75,000-barrels-per-day fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit, a 706,000-pounds-per-hour FCC gas concentration unit, a 20,000-barrels-per-day hydrofluoric acid (HF) alkylation unit and a 117,000-pounds-per-hour saturates gas plant.

Fluor would later complete another major Garyville refinery expansion in 2009.

Conclusion

Fluor began work on the project in 1976. The saturates gas plant was the first unit installed in October 1978. In November 1978, a 750-ton HF alkylation unit fractionator arrived from Japan and was assembled at the site. The remaining units were completed in 1979.