Marathon Petroleum’s Geothermal Strategy in 2025: A Calculated Absence

Industry Adoption: Marathon Petroleum’s Geothermal Sideline Amidst Sector Convergence

Between 2021 and 2024, Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC) firmly established its energy transition strategy, focusing on decarbonizing its core refining operations and investing heavily in adjacent, low-carbon solutions. The company’s primary efforts materialized in renewable fuels, highlighted by significant joint ventures like the Martinez Renewables facility with Neste and the Green Bison Soy Processing plant with ADM. This period demonstrated a clear strategic choice: leverage existing infrastructure and core competencies in hydrocarbon processing rather than venturing into new energy verticals. While the broader oil and gas industry began to recognize the transferable skills for geothermal development, MPC’s public disclosures and climate reports showed no engagement with the technology, concentrating instead on renewable diesel and carbon capture (CCUS) initiatives.

The period from January 1, 2025, to today marks a significant inflection point, not for MPC, but for the geothermal sector itself. While MPC continues its established path—evidenced by six of its refineries earning ENERGY STAR® certifications for superior efficiency and its renewable diesel segment reporting a profitable Q4 2024—the geothermal industry has accelerated. Companies like Fervo Energy are now successfully applying oil and gas drilling technologies to commercialize enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), a development validated by major projects and growing political support. The U.S. Department of Energy now projects that advanced geothermal could supply 90 gigawatts by 2050. This divergence is stark: as the technological and commercial case for geothermal strengthens, leveraging skills MPC possesses, the company’s complete absence from the sector has shifted from a neutral position to a conspicuous strategic decision. This inaction signals a potential long-term vulnerability and a missed opportunity to diversify into baseload, carbon-free power generation, a path peers like MOL Group are beginning to explore at their own refineries.

Table: Marathon Petroleum’s Strategic Investments (Non-Geothermal), 2025

Table: Marathon Petroleum’s Strategic Partnerships (Non-Geothermal), 2025

Geography: Marathon Petroleum’s U.S. Focus Contrasts with Geothermal’s Global Momentum

Between 2021 and 2024, Marathon Petroleum’s activities were geographically concentrated in the United States, centered around its existing asset base. Key strategic moves like the Martinez Renewables JV in California and feedstock partnerships for its renewable diesel operations solidified its domestic focus. This strategy was about repurposing and optimizing assets within its established North American footprint.

From 2025 to today, MPC’s geographical anchor remains firmly in the U.S., with efficiency awards for refineries across the country and midstream acquisitions in the Delaware Basin. However, the geographic landscape for geothermal has expanded both domestically and internationally. While the U.S. has emerged as a major growth market for advanced geothermal—with Fervo Energy’s work in Utah and the DOE’s projections underscoring massive domestic potential—MPC remains absent. Furthermore, international peers are not waiting. MOL Group’s exploration of geothermal potential at its Danube Refinery in Hungary provides a direct model of an integrated energy company exploring geothermal to decarbonize its own operations. This contrast reveals a strategic divergence: while the geothermal opportunity is growing in MPC’s home market and being proven by its international counterparts, the company’s geographic strategy remains tied to its legacy hydrocarbon infrastructure.

Technology Maturity: Marathon Petroleum Optimizes the Mature while Sidelining the Ascendant

In the 2021–2024 period, Marathon Petroleum’s technology focus was on the commercialization and scaling of mature technologies. The conversion of the Martinez refinery to produce renewable diesel is a prime example. This involved applying proven hydroprocessing technology to new feedstocks—a logical extension of its core refining competency. The company’s efforts were directed at executing and de-risking large-scale projects within a well-understood technological framework. During this time, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) were still largely in pilot or demonstration phases, seen as a promising but not yet commercially scaled technology.

The landscape in 2025 reveals a critical shift in technology maturity, particularly for EGS. While MPC continues to optimize its highly mature refining processes to gain incremental efficiency (e.g., ENERGY STAR awards), geothermal has crossed a commercial threshold. The successful application of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing by companies like Fervo Energy has validated EGS as a scalable, 24/7 renewable power source. This technology, which directly leverages oil and gas expertise, has moved from pilot to commercial deployment. MPC’s continued focus on renewable fuels and operational efficiency means it is doubling down on a mature technology curve while a new, adjacent curve—EGS—is rapidly ascending without its participation. This represents a failure to transfer its significant subsurface and drilling-adjacent knowledge to a high-growth emerging technology sector.

Table: SWOT Analysis of Marathon Petroleum’s Geothermal Position (2021-2025)

Forward-Looking Insights and Summary

Marathon Petroleum’s current trajectory is a clear and calculated bet on optimizing its existing business while focusing its energy transition capital exclusively on liquid fuels. The data from 2025 confirms this playbook: enhance refinery efficiency, expand midstream assets, and grow the profitable renewable diesel segment. While this strategy leverages current strengths and delivers near-term shareholder value, it deliberately ignores the maturation of the geothermal sector, a field where MPC’s technical expertise would be a significant advantage.

Looking ahead, the most critical signal to watch for will be any deviation from this path. The first indicator of a strategic shift would be the announcement of a pilot project to explore geothermal for process heat or power at one of its refineries, directly mirroring the move made by MOL Group. Such a project would signal that leadership recognizes the strategic risk of ignoring a baseload, carbon-free energy source that can decarbonize its own high-emitting operations. Without this signal, expect MPC to continue ceding the geothermal space to pure-play pioneers and more diversified energy competitors. For investors and strategists, tracking this divergence between MPC’s focused strategy and the burgeoning geothermal market is essential to understanding the long-term competitive landscape of the energy transition. Uncovering these critical inflection points and strategic gaps requires a deeper level of analysis.

To perform your own analysis of company strategies and track competitive movements across the energy transition, explore a dedicated research platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why isn’t Marathon Petroleum (MPC) investing in geothermal energy?
According to the analysis, Marathon Petroleum has made a strategic choice to focus on its core competencies in refining and logistics. Its energy transition strategy prioritizes decarbonizing existing operations and investing in adjacent sectors like renewable fuels (e.g., renewable diesel) and carbon capture (CCUS), rather than venturing into new energy verticals like geothermal.

What is MPC’s energy transition strategy focused on instead of geothermal?
MPC’s strategy centers on leveraging its existing infrastructure. Key investments include renewable fuels, highlighted by the Martinez Renewables joint venture with Neste and partnerships with Comstock Fuels, as well as strengthening its midstream assets through its MLP, MPLX. The company is also focused on improving operational efficiency, as shown by its refineries earning multiple ENERGY STAR® certifications.

Is the ‘Marathon’ company partnering in Kenya for geothermal the same as Marathon Petroleum?
No, they are different companies. The article explicitly notes that the partnership with the Government of Kenya to monetize geothermal energy for Bitcoin mining involves Marathon Digital Holdings, a separate entity. This is included to highlight the broader industry’s use of geothermal, but it is not a project connected to Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC).

Why is MPC’s absence from geothermal considered a ‘missed opportunity’?
The absence is considered a missed opportunity because the geothermal sector, particularly Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), has recently become commercially viable by using technologies from the oil and gas industry. As MPC possesses this expertise, it is missing a chance to diversify into baseload, carbon-free power generation—a path some of its international peers, like MOL Group, are beginning to explore.

What would be a key indicator that MPC is changing its strategy towards geothermal?
The article suggests that the first significant signal of a strategic shift would be the announcement of a pilot project. Specifically, a project to explore using geothermal for process heat or power at one of its own refineries, which would mirror the approach taken by competitors like MOL Group and indicate that MPC’s leadership sees value in the technology.