UTICA GROWTH

Executives also said condensate shipments via truck from Ohio's Utica shale play to Marathon's 78,000 bpd refinery in Canton, Ohio, have sharply increased to 10,000 bpd from 3,000 bpd earlier this year.

In addition, the company's 233,000 bpd Catlettsburg, Kentucky, refinery just received its first barge shipment of Utica condensate as Marathon tested its infrastructure to make such shipments, executives said.

Marathon is building condensate splitters at Canton and Catlettsburg - to start up in late 2014 and mid-2015, respectively - to process that growing condensate output.

Expectations of that growth have prompted the company to look into building a 50-mile pipeline from Carroll and Harrison counties to the Canton refinery. Once there, output can move via pipeline to the company's Wellsville asphalt terminal and load onto barges to go to Catlettsburg.

The company is working to get right-of-way as part of the initial engineering, Heminger told Reuters in a post-call interview.

"Everything today is trucked, and trucking is very expensive" Heminger said. "Once you can aggregate enough volume, you can justify a pipeline, and that cuts transportation costs for everybody."

Liquid condensates are very light hydrocarbons that can be sold as crude oil, as a diluent to blend into heavy crude, or processed in a condensate splitter and sold.