A spate of refinery outages caused by fires and cold weather has temporarily halted 1 million barrels per day of production capacity. Via Reuters, the disruptions affected roughly 20% of refining capacity in the eastern U.S. and could worsen pressure on crude oil prices.
Husky Energy is working to restart its Lima, Ohio, refinery after a Saturday explosion damaged its 25,000-barrel-per-day isocracker unit. Husky has said it can operate the refinery without the unit. No injuries were reported in the blast.
Marathon Petroleum plans to restart its Robinson, Ill., refinery today after a fire shut down its crude unit and vacuum distillation unit.
Subzero wind chills late last week shut down a crude distillation unit at BP’s Whiting, Ind., refinery. Sources said the refinery’s other two crude units were operational.
Small fires and heavy flaring led to a shutdown of Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ 355,000-barrel-per-day refinery. The refinery is expected to restart today.
