Marathon Martinez Refinery facts for kids

The Marathon Martinez Refinery refined oil into gasoline and other petroleum based products. The plant, idled since April 2020 and being converted to a renewable fuels manufacturing facility, is located in the San Francisco Bay Area in an unincorporated area known as Avon, east of Martinez, California. The refinery is owned by Marathon Petroleum Company.

The refinery is located on 2,200 acres, in 2016 had approximately 650 full-time employees, and has a crude oil capacity of 166,000 barrels per day. In 2015 it was the fourth largest refinery in the state.

History

Established in 1878–1879, Avon was railroad station named for Shakespeare's Avon.

A post office operated at Avon from 1912 to 1960. It was originally called Marsh, and in 1913 the name was changed to Associated. The name Marsh was in honor of John Marsh. The name Associated was for the Tidewater Associated Oil Company, owner of the site.

The refinery was first built in 1913 under the name Avon Refinery, and has been continually expanded since. It was purchased by Tosco in 1976. By the 1990s, a history of poor maintenance and under-staffing gave the refinery a reputation for being a hazardous workplace. Throughout the 1990s, it led the US refining industry in the number of environmental and safety code violations. These poor conditions culminated in two catastrophic accidents. In the first, a 1997 hydrocracker explosion killed one worker. In the second of these, four workers died and a fifth was hospitalized in a 1999 naphtha explosion. A maintenance supervisor refused to shut down the unit after corroding valves failed to stop the flow of the extremely hazardous substance.

In November 2010, the refinery had a flaring event, due to a simultaneous PG&E utility power and Foster Wheeler co-generation plant failure, that produced large quantities of thick black smoke.

In February 2015, a nationwide strike by USW represented employees resulted in the closure of the Martinez refinery, the only refinery closure resulting from the strike.

On December 15, 2015, thick smoke and flames could be seen rising up from the refinery. Due to the loss of a primary steam generation unit, flaring was done to release pressure. A Level 2 alert was issued to the community, recommending that they stay indoors due to smoke blowing offsite. The alert was reduced to Level 0 on the same day.

On July 31, 2020, Marathon announced plans to idle the refinery and use it as an oil-storage facility while evaluating its future use to produce renewable diesel. On March 1, 2021, Marathon stated that it was proceeding with plans to convert the refinery to a renewable fuels facility.