Marathon Petroleum Corporation is an American petroleum refining, marketing, and transportation company headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil until a corporate spin-off in 2011.
Following its acquisition of Andeavor on October 1, 2018, Marathon Petroleum became the largest petroleum refinery operator in the United States, with 16 refineries and over 3 million barrels per day of refining capacity.[3] Marathon Petroleum ranked No. 41 on the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.[4] In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Marathon Petroleum was ranked as the 197th-largest public company in the world.[5]
Marathon Petroleum’s marketing system includes branded locations across the United States, including Marathon branded outlets. MPC also owns the general partner and majority limited partner interest in MPLX LP, a midstream company which owns and operates gathering, processing, and fractionation assets, as well as crude oil and light product transportation and logistics infrastructure.
Marathon Petroleum Corporation was formed on November 9, 2009, as a subsidiary of Marathon Oil.
Predecessor company
The predecessor company of Marathon Petroleum Corporation, Marathon Petroleum Company LLC, formerly known as Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC, was formed by the merger of the refining operations of Marathon Oil and Ashland Inc. in 1998. The merger brought together several descendents of the Standard Oil trust, as Ashland had acquired several smaller Standard spinoffs while Marathon itself was directly owned by Standard Oil. It also brought Marathon’s Speedway and Ashland’s SuperAmerica convenience store chains together and were subsequently merged as “Speedway SuperAmerica”.
As longtime Marathon rivals Standard Oil of Ohio and Amoco were acquired by British company BP, Marathon Ashland adopted the marketing slogan “An American Company Serving America”, with the slogan being adjourned to Marathon gas pumps. In 2006, it adopted its current slogan, “Fueling the American Spirit”.
In 2005, the company became a 100% owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil, after Ashland sold off its downstream assets and exited the retail business.[12] In 2006, Marathon began using STP-branded additives in its gasoline.[13]
In 2009, the company completed a $3.9 billion expansion of its refinery in Garyville, Louisiana, that increased the plant’s capacity by 180,000 barrels per day.[12]
In 2010, the company sold its 74,000 barrel-per-day refinery in St. Paul Park, Minnesota, along with associated terminals, pipelines, and inventory as well as 166 SuperAmerica convenience stores to Northern Tier Energy for $900 million.[14]