Gem of a job

Marathon’s Garyville, La., refinery expansion a rarity

By Angelle Bergeron

The $3.2 billion major expansion at Marathon’s Garyville, La., refinery epitomizes the vitality and robustness of the U.S. oil and gas industry, the engineering and construction community, and Louisiana contractors and their workforce.

The Garyville Major Expansion (GME) is one of the largest private sector projects underway in the country. Essentially construction of a new refinery adjacent to the existing one, the GME will almost double the refinery’s current capacity of 245,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) to 425,000. That capacity will bump Garyville up from being the 18th ranked refinery in the country to one of the top five. The fast-track project began March 2007 and will be completed December 2009.

At peak periods, the project will engage an engineering design team of 1,250 and a construction workforce totaling 4,000. Materials and technical expertise from around the world are being utilized for the project, and the local community stands to reap an estimated $60 million in state and parish sales and use tax during construction alone.

It’s the right time, and Garyville is the right place, says Richard Bedell, Garyville plant manager. “The U.S. importsclose to 2 million barrels a day to meet current demand because we are short of refining capacity,” Bedell says. “There is room in the market to expand.” The 180,000 bpd expansion will provide the equivalent of 7.5 million gallons of clean transportation fuels each day, enough to fuel more than 380,000 cars.

With ready access to the Mississippi River and the pipeline systems, and a 3,000-acre site that offers ample room to grow, Garyville is the “ideal” location for an expansion, Bedell adds. “We are able to build a new refinery but leverage infrastructure.” The 400-acre GME will share many components of the existing 900-acre refinery, but will include the addition of a ship dock, electrical capacity, hydrogen plant, several product or crude tanks, several process units and a 44,000 bpd Coker unit.

As the last grassroots refinery, with numerous upgrades over the years, Garyville is one of the most energy efficient refineries in the country, Bedell says. “We have one crude unit, one large cat cracker, whereas other refineries have multiple ones,” he explains. “It’s a matter of economy of scale. It takes the same number of people to run a unit with smaller output.” In refinery jargon, that means Garyville is a large single train refinery. The GME will be building a parallel train, without adding a lot of infrastructure.

Marathon is taking the opportunity of the expansion to further improve the refinery’s energy efficiency by adding more heat integration and recovery equipment. “We are investing more capital up front to get more efficiency,” Bedell says. “About 50% of our manufacturing cost is energy, so we are doing anything we can do to reclaim that, which in turn results in a corresponding decrease of emissions.”

Flour Corporation of Irving, Texas, is leading the project management, engineering and procurement for the expansion. “One of the key drivers during the design phase of the project was to ensure this new refinery was as energy efficient as practical,” says Steve Anderson, Sr., vice president and project director for Fluor. “To this end the heat integration within each unit and between units was maximized to minimize the amount of energy required to run the facility. Waste heat recovery, through steam generation and air preheat, was also maximized within all boilers and furnaces,” Anderson says. “Further, specific areas were evaluated for maximizing refinery efficiency. For example, a dedicated hydrotreater sour water system was installed to maximize water reuse, minimizing raw water treating and waste water production, along with associate energy savings.”

In July 2007, the first of 22,000 piles were driven in the new Hydrocracker unit area. Cajun Constructors, Inc. and James Construction Group, both of Baton Rouge, are performing the civil work and will be installing some pipe and wood, but predominantly pre-stress concrete pilings provided by Burckel of Baton Rouge.

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By September, contractors were pouring foundations throughout the project area. Steel erection began in January, with the piping erection expected to commence earlier than the March scheduled date. “The big equipment doesn’t start coming in untilsummertime,” says James Shoriak, P.E., project director. Garyville already boasts the largest Coker unit in the world. Placement of its mirror unit will mean the largest two Cokers in the world will be at Marathon Garyville, Shoriak says.

Driving through the bustling work area, which already had 1,200 construction employees in January, Shoriak pointed out: pipe spools fabricated at Sunland in Livingston, La.; steel from Pax in Gonzales, La.; towers and vessels from Beard in Shreveport and a Lafarge concrete batch plant on site. “It’s a Louisiana project, but also worldwide,” says Shoriak, who adds the project will include reactors from Italy, heat exchangers from France, towers and vessels from Belgium and Spain, and pumps from Mexico, Canada and Argentina. “Equipment is coming from all over the world because of the amount required and the time frame,” he says.

In January, Shoriak estimated the project was about 60% complete engineering and only 5% construction, with detailed engineering expected to wrap up June 2008. As project director, Shoriak was tasked with assembling an unprecedented, worldwide team of engineers, drafters, designers and procurement companies. “This is the first real mega project to occur in the U.S. other than a power plant, and as far as the engineering design, there aren’t enough resources available in the U.S. at this time to support it,” Shoriak says.

Fluor implemented “a project management system that allows real time communication and coordination between all of the participating parties,” Anderson says. “Fluor is uniquely suited to these types of projects. Our suite of tools has been developed to handle the multifaceted organizations, global reach and interfaces on mega-projects.”

For Shoriak, the project requires all of his 30 years experience and is “the most challenging and exciting project I’ve been on,” he says. Anderson agrees that the “opportunity to work on the first major refinery expansion in the U.S., starting from the conceptual stage all the way through construction with a key client is tremendously exciting.”

Shaw Stone & Webster of Baton Rouge is also providing engineering and procurement on the project. Industrial Specialty Contractors of Baton Rouge and Excel Contractors are doing the electrical and instrumentation. Turner Industries Group, LLC of Baton Rouge and Performance Contractors of Baton Rouge are responsible for the mechanical. Other contractors include Wilbros Energy Service, Inc. of Houston, Wink Companies, LLC of New Orleans and Chicago Bridge & Iron Company.

Rather than attempting to direct hire for the massive project, Marathon is relying on its primary contractors’ employee resources to meet the workforce needs, Shoriak says.

“Our premium, Louisiana contractors are utilizing their own trained and time tested workforce, and they bring the loyalty of employees who have, in some cases, worked with companies for 10-20 years,” he says.

That safety is essential for a construction project of this magnitude, which boasts a .23 OSHA incident rate, compared to a national average of more than 5 for similar projects, Shoriak says. Since 1994, Marathon Garyville has been a Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Star Site, an OSHA recognition for exemplary safety. The refinery is also the only petroleum refinery in the country admitted to EPA’s National Environmental Performance Track program, Bedell says. “Employees take a heck of a lot of pride in their performance and safety record,” he says.