Marathon now has a distribution network to ship materials from the Utica Shale Region to other parts of Ohio and beyond.
Last year, Marathon completed a major pipeline project that connects various parts of their network, now they are finishing up another line that connects their operations in Harpster, Ohio to here in Lima. This is part of a 500 million dollar pipeline project that allows Marathon to pump light hydrocarbon liquids and low octane natural gasoline to refineries and storage facilities in Ohio and the Midwest.
Business Development Manager for Marathon, Ryan Schroeder says this project will be much more safer, efficient and cost effective for refiners. "So this is important because we have a lot of local production now with the Utica and Marcellus being a very good place for a lot of producers and they need a place for those liquids to go so right now without the pipe lines in place those are natural gases that are being shipped by truck or by rail."
"So with our Utica build-out we now have connectivity here into Lima and that gets us also further connectivity to those other refineries through existing pipelines that already exist both up to Toledo and Detroit and then back into to the Illinois area including Chicago," says Jason Stechschulte, Commercial Development Manager for Marathon.
This project has been in the works for about four years now and the Harpster to Lima pipeline will be done by the end of this week and will be fully operational by this weekend.Â
