Environmental Performance Metrics
Marathon is committed to meeting the world's energy needs in a responsible
manner. The Company uses environmental metrics to determine where to focus
its efforts to improve performance by reducing the number of reportable
spills and releases, permit exceedances, and notices of violations.
Spills and Discharges For the oil and gas industry, oil spills are a principal measure of environmental performance due to their potential impacts on the environment. Marathon reports the total number of spills equal to or greater than 1 barrel and the total volume of oil released from these spills on a global basis. Due to past recording practice, Downstream data include only those oil spills that were reportable to federal, state or local agencies.
In 2007, Marathon's global operations experienced 43 oil spills (equal to or greater than 1 barrel), resulting in the release of an estimated total volume of 428 barrels of oil. These represent reductions of approximately 32 percent and 60 percent from the total number and volume, respectively, of oil spills recorded for 2006.
The total volume of oil spilled from Upstream operations in 2007 was 311 barrels from 30 spills equal to or greater than 1 barrel. The largest spill occurred in southeastern New Mexico and resulted from field flowline corrosion. A total of 174 barrels of natural gas condensate and 10,910 barrels of produced water were released by this one event. However, 165 barrels of the spilled hydrocarbon condensate were recovered. To prevent recurrence, the flowline was replaced and improved corrosion control practices were implemented.
Upstream's 2007 produced oil spill rate was 5.0 barrels per million barrels produced (BBL/MMBBL), a 21 percent improvement from 2006. This rate represents the gross volume lost from primary containment; approximately two-thirds of the total Upstream oil spill volume was recovered.
The total volume of oil spilled from Downstream operations in 2007 was approximately 117 barrels from 13 reportable spills equal to or greater than 1 barrel. Of these, two spills from refinery operations accounted for 94 barrels of the total volume spilled, all of which was contained on the refinery sites.
The total reportable spill rate for all regulated materials that must be reported for Downstream was 0.5 BBL/MMBBL of total refinery throughput. The 2007 spill volume was approximately 54 percent lower than in 2006.
Under U.S. Coast Guard regulations, any amount of oil spilled to water must be reported. Marathon's Marine organization reported one spill with a volume less than one gallon in 2007 while transporting approximately 3 billion gallons of petroleum products by water on Company-operated equipment.
To prevent spills to water, Marathon primarily uses double hull barges to move oil and petroleum products on U.S. inland river systems. Marathon will meet the new federal regulations for retiring all single hull barges well in advance of the January 1, 2015, deadline. The Company is also voluntarily fitting its inland barges that carry persistent oils (materials that do not readily evaporate or dissipate) with full-perimeter spill rails that help prevent spills from reaching the water.
The pipeline organization moved more than 900 million barrels of product in 2007 with one reportable spill greater than 1 barrel. Ongoing pipeline integrity measures, damage prevention and public awareness programs contributed to this performance.
