Marathon Petroleum buying St. Paul Park oil refinery

The St. Paul Park oil refinery is changing hands for the fourth time in eight years, this time landing under the wing of Marathon Petroleum, whose corporate predecessor formerly owned the facility.

The refinery is part of Findlay, Ohio-based Marathon's $23 billion buyout of San Antonio-based Andeavor, formerly known as Tesoro. Tesoro has owned the St. Paul Park refinery for less than a year. The deal announced Monday also includes the SuperAmerica fuel and convenience store brand whose stations have long been supplied by the St. Paul Park refinery.

There are currently 285 SuperAmerica stores in Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota, about 170 of which are franchised. SuperAmerica also owns a bakery and commissary in St. Paul Park that supplies its convenience stores. The refinery itself employs more than 350 people; employment numbers for the bakery and the stores weren't available.

Marathon's purchase of Andeavor will create the largest U.S. refining company, with a wide geographic scope. Marathon's refineries are in Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Texas and Louisiana. Aside from the St. Paul Park refinery, Andeavor has six refineries in western states, one in Alaska and two in North Dakota.

The deal also includes Andeavor's 17 percent ownership in a crude oil pipeline that runs from Clearbrook, Minn., to the Twin Cities.

One of two refineries in Minnesota, the St. Paul Park facility is the oldest, built in 1939 and refurbished since then. Marathon Petroleum's corporate predecessor, Marathon Oil, co-owned or owned the refinery and SuperAmerica from 1997 to 2010. Tesoro bought it in 2017 as part of its $4.1 billion acquisition of El Paso, Texas-based Western Refining.

The St. Paul Park refinery has a production capacity of 102,000 barrels of oil, about a third the size of the big Flint Hills Resources refinery in Rosemount.

The St. Paul Park refinery's capacity has grown by over 30 percent since 2010, as its owners have been investing in the facility.

One of them, Northern Tier Energy, spent about $100 million on upgrades. In 2010, Northern Tier bought the refinery from Marathon Oil, which later spun off a separate refining company known as Marathon Petroleum. Northern Tier, essentially a coupling of private equity groups, sold the St. Paul Park refinery in 2015 to Western Refining.

In late 2016, Western announced a sale to Tesoro, which renamed itself Andeavor last summer after the deal closed.

With the cash and stock deal announced Monday, Marathon values Andeavor at about $152 per share, around 25 percent higher than Andeavor's closing price Friday.

Mike Hughlett • 612-673-7003