New Marathon Refinery is the new Delray Landmark

[Lowell]

Driving down Fort toward the Rouge Plant, one is now greeted by this monster structure.



It is part of the new addition to the Marathon refinery that is set to come online in November. Controversial for the subsidies it received, the potential environmental issues it may create and Marathon's efforts to buy out the surrounding neighborhood, the giant tower also symbolizes a new era for the neighborhood.

[detlump]

Wow! It is imposing to be sure, but it is good to see investment in the area nonetheless.

[EastsideAl]

the giant tower also symbolizes a new era for the neighborhood

What neighborhood? It's all being destroyed for the expansion of the refinery. This "new era" is also the last era, and the big change being wrought is obliteration.

[Jimaz]

Is it a Cracking Tower?

[ferndalien]

It's a delayed coker. Marathon is adding capabilities to this refinery to process more heavy Canadian crude, mostly from the oil sands of Alberta. That type of crude starts its life as tarry goo, gets processed a bit up in Canada so it can be shipped through pipelines [[like the Enbridge pipeline), then ends up at refineries like this one. The coking process is designed to cook the heck out of the heavy stuff left after other processes get the good bits [[gasoline components, diesel, jet fuel) out of the crude - the heavy goo then breaks down into more useful lighter products and leaves behind coke.

[Hypestyles]

depending on how generously or cynically one is prone to look at Marathon's intentions.. we'll see what happens..
philosophically, I don't like the idea of anyone getting "pushed out" of their home, or lowballed in price.. at the same time, I don't envy being in the immediate vicinity of such heavy industrial operations as that as well as the sewer treatment plant.. I imagine once upon a time, many local houses were built explicitly to support the company workforce.. 80+ years ago, pollution was often viewed as simply a minor side-effect of progress, especially when such operations employed 50% or more of the surrounding community.. but now that we "know what we know" about some of the health/environment effects of such operations [[i.e., asthma in kids, etc.), I think it's fair to reassess the long-term viability of having residential areas right next to these operations..

[poobert]

depending on how generously or cynically one is prone to look at Marathon's intentions.. we'll see what happens..
philosophically, I don't like the idea of anyone getting "pushed out" of their home, or lowballed in price.. at the same time, I don't envy being in the immediate vicinity of such heavy industrial operations as that as well as the sewer treatment plant.. I imagine once upon a time, many local houses were built explicitly to support the company workforce.. 80+ years ago, pollution was often viewed as simply a minor side-effect of progress, especially when such operations employed 50% or more of the surrounding community.. but now that we "know what we know" about some of the health/environment effects of such operations [[i.e., asthma in kids, etc.), I think it's fair to reassess the long-term viability of having residential areas right next to these operations..

Yes, we can lament the loss of the neighborhood, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there [[and I generally like living in Detroit, just not in the shadow of a refinery). There was an article a while back about how the soot falls like snow and covers cars.

Now, the problem here is that when the residents move, how many do you think will stay in Detroit? Probably near zero. What is the city doing about it? Screwing around about this financial review board business and otherwise generally wasting time, as far as I can tell.

[MikeM]

This should make everyone here who complains about gas prices happy.

[Downriviera]

I wish it was a giant column whiskey still instead. Would be nice if Marathon put a big neon olde english D on it. Whats going to happen to Gonella's, Giovanni's and Bridge Cafe?

[Richard]

When gas was through the roof they had the oil executives on 20/20 saying the reason was because it takes 25 years to get permission and have all of the EPA permits approved to build a refinery so they stopped building them.
Arizona refinery was 23 years into that stretch.

If that was or is the case did Marathon know 25 years ago what they going to do?Why was your gas at $4.00 + a gallon when ours was $3.45 are they billing you for the building aspect? Or is that just from added state taxes?

[MikeM]

There's an article today in the Windsor Star about a growing pile of petroleum coke on Detroit's riverfront - on property owned by Matty Moroun. It's coke produced as a byproduct from refining heavy Canadian crude in the new section of the Marathon refinery.

Environmental concerns raised over massive black pile on riverfront

[drjeff]

That neighborhood is pretty much gone at this point. There are very few occupied houses that I see when I drive down Fort. It also smells pretty awful a lot of the time there.

[mwilbert]

When gas was through the roof they had the oil executives on 20/20 saying the reason was because it takes 25 years to get permission and have all of the EPA permits approved to build a refinery so they stopped building them.
Arizona refinery was 23 years into that stretch.

If that was or is the case did Marathon know 25 years ago what they going to do?Why was your gas at $4.00 + a gallon when ours was $3.45 are they billing you for the building aspect? Or is that just from added state taxes?

25 years is an exaggeration [[probably more like 10, except no one in the US is even trying to build new refineries, so it is hard to tell), but whatever that number was, that was the time it would take to get a new refinery approved and constructed. This isn't a new refinery, it is an expansion and that process is much quicker, although I think Marathon started working on this no later than 2008.

[old guy]

New petroleum coke production from Marathon's Detroit refinery, scheduled to come on within a few months, might in part supply fuel needs for Detroit Edison's Monroe power plant in Monroe, MI.

DownstreamToday.com - New Petcoke from Detroit Refinery Could Whittle PRB Use at Power Plant

[Gistok]

The irony is that the Canada is getting back some of it Oil Sands... as byproducts via the wind...

[Downriviera]

Driving down Oakwood the other day I noticed that the Bridge Cafe has been leveled. Did they sell to Marathon?

[rex]

its lovely

[DetroitPlanner]

Driving down Oakwood the other day I noticed that the Bridge Cafe has been leveled. Did they sell to Marathon?

The bascule bridge is being replaced and the odd intersection is being addressed.

[WaCoTS]

Booze on the Rouge is gone too
thankfully Gonella's is still up & running

[softailrider]

Driving down Oakwood the other day I noticed that the Bridge Cafe has been leveled. Did they sell to Marathon?

Pretty soon you'll be hard pressed to find a neighborhood bar left in the city...........

[KJ5]

Are you sure it's not a Decepticon for Transformers 4?

[renf]

When they made their original announcement about renovating their southwest Detroit plant, Marathon described an investment of $1.9 billion. I believe that
was later increased to $2.1 billion. However, they also announced that their investment would add only 145 employees, about 65 new Marathon employees and the remainder contract workers. This is what is occurring throughout the nation today. In very many industries, output can be increased very substantially with almost no additional workers. GM added Impala and Malibu to their production at the Hamtramck plant. I suspect they increased employment only modestly.

[MikeM]

Are they waiting for a buyer? Or the ice to melt to ship it out?

Second massive pile of petcoke grows on Detroit’s skyline

[fanniemae]

All sounds like a stall tactic by the people that put that crap there. The property values in that area already were bad. My gosh, who would live around there. The rents must be so low, it is the poor that move in. Then their health goes downhill. I am talking Ecorse, Delray, Melvindale, east Dearborn and south Detroit. Years ago, one of my friends lived in Melvindale. The soot and stains on the house siding were telling of the pollution even back then.

[EastsideAl]

Booze on the Rouge is gone too
thankfully Gonella's is still up & running

Are Gonella's and Giovanni's going to be closing or [[hopefully) moving? Seems strange for them to stay in that 'neighborhood' with the neighborhood itself having been replaced by a mammoth noisy stinky refinery.