This year, the Texan by Nature 20 is brought to you in partnership with Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC). After the Texan by Nature team and esteemed selection committee finalized the 2020 honorees, MPC stepped forward with financial support to help Texan by Nature realize the vision of broadly sharing the best practices and innovation demonstrated by the TxN 20 honorees.

MPC’s support of the TxN 20 was a natural fit, aligning with MPC goals: leading in sustainable energy, conserving natural resources and reducing waste, creating shared value and opportunity, promoting safety, and operating with integrity. Specifically, MPC strives to operate in ways that conserve freshwater, respect biodiversity, reduce waste to landfills, prevent spills, and minimize air emissions from their facilities and products. MPC believes how business is conducted is just as important as performance. With $18.7 million in community investment, 55,500 volunteer hours logged, 10,600+ animals positively impacted, 39,000 tonnes of landfill waste diverted, and 275 million gallons of freshwater saved in 2019, MPC and its 2,230 Texas employees stand out as conservation stewards not only for Texas, but for the world.

HONOREE SIZE & INDUSTRY: Enterprise – Energy

COMPANY OVERVIEW 

With 3,700 employees in Texas across three cities and 60,000 employees company wide, Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC) is the largest independent petroleum refining, marketing, retail, and midstream business in the U.S. MPC is headquartered in Findlay, Ohio and has 132 years of experience in the energy business with roots tracing back to 1887. MPC’s operations are diverse in both geographic location and feedstock scope. They operate subsidiaries in 41 states and the District of Columbia; the Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, and Sinaloa; and trading operations in the U.S., Canada, and Singapore. Their nearly 12,000 retail and marketing locations include approximately 6,900 branded outlets across the U.S. and in Mexico, and approximately 5,000 Speedway and ARCO retail convenience stores nationwide. Additionally, MPC has a growing renewable energy portfolio, including their biodiesel facility in Cincinnati, Ohio; joint venture ownership of four Midwest ethanol plants; conversion of one of their petroleum refineries to produce renewable diesel; an agreement with Fulcrum Bioenergy to purchase synthetic crude manufactured from municipal waste; and their wholly-owned subsidiary, Virent. Virent is working to commercialize a process to produce advanced biofuels, including biogasoline and bio-jet fuel, from plant sugars and lignocellulosic material. MPC works to reliably provide affordable, abundant, and safe energy in new and innovative ways, while making strategic investments that help society achieve economic growth, environmental preservation, and resource conservation to address the needs of future generations. In 2019, MPC invested $18.7 million into the communities in which they operate.

SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS STRATEGY 

Sustainability at MPC consists of five areas: leading in sustainable energy, conserving natural resources and reducing waste, creating shared value and opportunity, promoting safety, and operating with integrity. Specifically, MPC strives to operate in ways that conserve freshwater, respect biodiversity, reduce waste to landfills, prevent spills, and minimize air emissions from their facilities and products. MPC’s approach to sustainability is defined not only by their commitment to comply with all laws and regulations but by their determination to achieve or exceed their own rigorous sustainability targets. MPC believes how business is conducted is just as important as performance.

MPC’s commitment to sustainability means taking actions that create shared value with their many stakeholders – empowering people to achieve more, contributing to progress in their communities, and conserving resources in their operations. Affordable, reliable energy is more important than ever as MPC works to recover from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. MPC believes that petroleum fuels, biofuels, petrochemicals, and natural gas are the building blocks of the modern economy – agriculture, construction, manufacturing, retail sales, and emergency services all rely on these affordable materials and energy sources.

EMPLOYEE LEADERSHIP

Conservation efforts at MPC are truly a team effort and it takes participation from all employees. MPC’s Executive Vice President of Refining, Raymond L. Brooks, is a champion for conservation and sustainability. His leadership provides the opportunity for all MPC employees to be involved and contribute to the company’s conservation efforts. 

Additionally, MPC Gives is an employee-directed, open giving program that the company rolled out in the fall of 2019. Via this program employees are provided the opportunity to support organizations and community efforts important to them, and the company supports the efforts by matching employee donations and funding volunteer incentive awards. Last year MPC employees donated $5.6 million through MPC Gives, as well as through the legacy employee giving and volunteering programs, and contributed more than 55,500 personal hours to strengthen MPC’s communities and help make people’s lives better locally and across the nation.

In 2019, MPC invested approximately $400,000 in ten STEM and CTE (Career and Technical Education) programs in 10 schools surrounding the El Paso refinery. These programs and investments ultimately promote and educate kids to become future thinkers/inventors for environmental sustainability. MPC also purchased a $100,000 Mobile STEM education lab for the University of Texas at El Paso College of Engineering. The lab travels to elementary and middle schools throughout the West Texas Borderplex region. MPC engineers accompany the mobile STEM Lab on its journeys.

MPC averages 40 people annually planting cord grasses at the 2,300-acre Texas City Prairie Preserve to prevent
bank erosion. This section of shoreline was eroding by one foot each year from a lack of stabilizing vegetation. Additionally, a Galveston Bay Refinery employee worked with the Galveston Bay Area Chapter Texas Master Naturalists to install 96 new collection tubes for recycling monofilament (fishing line) across Galveston County. The new collection tubes were accompanied by new signs (featured in four languages) that explain what the stations are for, why they are important, and how to use them. Discarded fishing line can be harmful to boat motors and marine wildlife.

Additionally, MPC hosts numerous educational Lunch and Learns on wildlife, habitats, and conservation. The wildlife habitat team co-leader at Texas City, Allen Hardee, leads FeatherFest educational sessions and birding trips annually in Galveston, Texas. This Galveston Island Nature Tourism Council project is held in April during spring migration. 

CONSERVATION PROGRAMS

Sustainable Energy

Leading in sustainability means MPC strives to lower energy carbon intensity, increase renewable fuel processing and energy use, improve energy efficiency, embrace innovation, and deploy advanced technologies. Their “Focus on Energy” program was established in 2010 as the cornerstone of their overarching strategy to effectively manage and reduce energy usage at their refineries. Overall, the program has allowed MPC to greatly increase their energy efficiency and decrease their GHG intensity. MPC has saved approximately $500 million in energy costs since 2007, with $57 million being saved in 2018 alone.

MPC is committed to reducing the carbon intensity of their products, and in March 2020, they were the first independent U.S. refiner to establish a company-wide greenhouse gas emissions intensity reduction target. Additionally, they linked achievement of the goal to their executive and employee compensation programs. MPC’s 2030 target builds on their years-long commitment to reduce the carbon intensity of their operations and products. 

Additional focus areas to achieve their 2030 goal include expanding the energy efficiency program, reducing methane emissions, and increasing the use of renewable energy. Some highlights include:

• 21% reduction in GHG intensity since 2014.
• 2.4 billion gallons of biofuels delivered.
• $470 million investment to convert MPC’s Dickinson, North Dakota, refinery into a 12,000 barrel-per-day renewable diesel plant that processes corn and soybean oil to produce renewable diesel primarily for the California market.
• 16,380 tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided across 45 MPLX terminals in 2019 through utilizing Vapor Recovery Units to recover vapors from trucks as they are loaded with fuel at terminals. 
• Produced 460 million gallons of ethanol in 2019 through a joint venture with The Andersons, Inc, and blended more than 2 billion gallons of ethanol into fuel they marketed and sold. Additionally, 175,000 tonnes of CO2 captured from the ethanol plants are used in the beverage industry.
• Improved transportation efficiency in 2019 as a partner company in EPA’s SmartWay Transport program, resulting in a 10.9% increase in miles per gallon and a 9.8% reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) grams per mile.
• U.S. EPA’s ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year award 2018 and 2019 and Sustained Excellence award 2020.

Water Use & Conservation

In 2019, MPC developed their “Focus on Water” program and began implementation in early 2020. This initiative, sponsored by the MPC Executive Vice President of Refining, will help MPC refineries continue to assess their water use, recognize and mitigate water risks, identify opportunities to reduce water demand, and support MPC’s commitment to reduce freshwater withdrawals.

 MPC refineries collectively saved over 275 million of gallons of municipal freshwater in 2019 through traditional approaches to water reuse, such as capturing steam condensate, as well as unique, site-specific water recycling projects. For example, Galveston Bay refinery saves more than 70 million gallons of water per year! A series of steam recovery projects strengthened this refinery’s water conservation and reduced its energy use. In 2019, this refinery replaced 763 steam traps, helping decrease steam consumption by 42,000 pounds per hour, avoiding more than 27,000 tonnes of CO2e emissions annually, decreasing the refinery’s energy intensity by almost 2%.

Biodiversity & Investment in Conservation 

MPC’s pledge to preserve biodiversity extends to educating their employees and the communities where they operate, such as through their involvement in the Wildlife Habitat Council’s (WHC) land certification program. The WHC provides the only voluntary sustainability standard for biodiversity enhancement and conservation education activities on corporate lands. MPC owns and manages more than 1,300 acres of WHC-certified habitat land at 23 locations, which includes a 360-acre Wildlife Reserve near their Catlettsburg, Kentucky refinery. These habitats support a variety of informational programs for students, community residents, and employees

At MPC’s 6-acre WHC certified site at their Texas City refinery, MPC employees recorded the following in 2019:

•  8,191 birds (160 species)
•  2,143 pollinators (at least 15 species, but many unidentified)
• 285 other assorted animals including spiders, snakes, tree frogs, squirrels, anoles, grasshoppers, and turtles (at least 10 species, but many unidentified)

The number of individual animals and species has increased since 2018 as MPC continues to improve their wildlife conservation areas. This project is Texan by Nature Certified as well!

In El Paso, MPC has invested $50,000 in Paso del Norte’s Trail’s Playa Drain Trail Project that helped ensure an additional 8.3 miles of trail that will promote environmental sustainability and conservation. The Paso del Norte Trail is a community-driven, collaborative effort to develop a 68-mile county-wide trail that promotes active transportation, preserves the history and culture of the region, highlights the Rio Grande river, supports economic development and ecotourism, enhances the ecological ecosystem, provides educational and volunteer opportunities, and makes healthy living the easy choice for the unique, binational community of El Paso. Paso del Norte was selected as a 2020 Texan by Nature Conservation Wrangler based on the project’s positive impact to people, prosperity, and natural resources.

Additionally, the MPLX Southwest Gathering Group is voluntarily enrolled in a Conservation Agreement for the Texas Hornshell Mussel and other covered species.

Waste Diversion

Waste minimization is a business priority for MPC, allowing for financial and environmental benefits to both the company and the communities they call home. MPC continually looks to improve their maintenance and operations activities to reduce the volume of waste generated. In 2019, 93%, 39,000 tonnes, of hazardous waste was diverted from landfills and used for fuels, cement, catalyst metal reclamation, and recycled through other programs.

BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE 

MPC is committed to reducing the carbon intensity of their operations and they have a successful track record of doing so. Several key initiatives that have had significant

impacts include:

• Increasing the energy efficiency of operations
• Reducing flaring emissions
• Reducing fugitive methane emissions

MPC believes that energy efficiency needs to be a cornerstone of any climate change strategy to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth. It is one of the most cost-effective ways to enhance the security of energy supplies, boost competitiveness, and reduce the environmental footprint of energy systems.

MPC’s philanthropic arm, the Marathon Petroleum Foundation is strategically focused on community investments
for three core areas where it can make a positive, measurable impact. One of the core areas where the foundation makes investments is environmental conservation and sustainability. MPC supports government agencies, environmental and community groups, trade, professional, and industry associations devoted to efforts that protect, conserve, and sustain environmental resources. These efforts may include recycling initiatives, clean-ups, educational programs, construction of nature trails, and research projects. In 2019 alone, the Marathon Petroleum Foundation contributed just under $1 million to environmental conservation and sustainability initiatives in the communities where they work and live.

TEXAN-LED CONSERVATION

MPC in Texas includes two refineries, MPLX Logistics & Storage operations, and MPLX Gathering & Processing operations.  The MPLX divisions encompass a wide variety of assets including gathering systems, pipeline facilities, natural gas processing facilities, and a marine facility.

MPC operations in Texas also include a substantial corporate office in San Antonio housing 1250 employees and a Trading Group in Houston.

MPC’s Galveston Bay refinery is in Texas City, Texas, on Galveston Bay, near the entrance to the Houston Ship Channel. In 2018, Galveston Bay merged with MPC’s former Texas City refinery into a single world-class refining complex with a crude oil refining capacity of 585,000 barrels per day. This refinery can process and convert a wide variety of crude oils into gasoline, distillates, aromatics, heavy fuel oil, dry gas, fuel-grade coke, refinery-grade propylene, chemical-grade propylene, and sulfur. Products are distributed via pipeline, barge, transport truck, rail, and ocean tanker. The refinery has access to the export market and multiple options to sell refined products.

MPC’s El Paso refinery is located approximately three miles east of downtown El Paso, Texas. The El Paso refinery has a crude oil refining capacity of approximately 131,000 barrels per day. The refinery can process and convert sweet and sour crudes into gasoline, distillates, heavy fuel oil, asphalt, and propane, in addition to having access to the Permian Basin shale region. Products are delivered from the El Paso refinery by truck, rail, and pipeline.

Learn more about Marathon Petroleum’s sustainability efforts.

Definitions:

– Greenhouse gases or GHG, is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range. Greenhouse gases cause the greenhouse effect on planets. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.