Marathon Petroleum Repowers Three Towboats

When Marathon Petroleum wanted to repower its inland river towboats, the company turned to its Cat dealer Whayne Power to get the job done. Marathon had installed Cat 3606 engines on the inland waterways vessels in the early 1990s, and twenty years later was ready to repower three towboats with the successor to the 3600 engine series, the Cat C280.

 

Starting in December 2013, Whayne Power worked with Marathon to repower the three vessels with Cat C280-6 engines, each rated at 2,548 bhp at 900 rpm.

 

“Marathon Petroleum has been a proud Cat customer for decades and had great success with the reliability and durability of the Cat 3606 engines since the initial installation of the engines,” Lincoln Turnage, Whayne Power marine account manager noted. “They were impressed with the long overhaul intervals and were eager to repower their vessels with the C280 engines, which have the perfect speed and power fit for their applications on the inland rivers.”

 

Cat C280 marine engines are available in continuous and maximum continuous ratings at 900 and 1,000 rpm and in 6, 8, 12, and 16 cylinder configurations The ADEM A3 electronic control system enables the C280 engines to work smarter and harder. According to the manufacturer, the C280 engines provide customers with low owning and operating costs, with overhaul intervals running as long as 40,000 hours.

 

“At Whayne, our customers have found the C280 delivers on the same Cat brand promise as the 3606 engines, which developed a long-standing reputation on the waterways as a reliable workhorse,” Turnage noted. “With the increasing demands for the C280 platform on inland waterway applications, we’ve become incredibly proficient at completing comprehensive repowers quickly to get our customers’ vessels back on the water.”