BP Refinery Shutdown Fuels Midwest Gas Price Surge
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An outage at the largest inland U.S. refinery has raised gasoline prices in the Midwest ahead of the Labor Day holiday, the final major travel weekend of the country’s peak driving season.
Pump prices in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan on Aug. 25 were as much as 27 cents higher than a week ago, according to American Automobile Association data. The jump came after BP Plc’s 435,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Whiting, Ind., shut processing units Aug. 19 due to rainstorms and flooding in the region. The nationwide U.S. gasoline price rose just 2 cents in the same stretch.
The Whiting refinery restarted one of its two main oil-processing units Aug. 25, but drivers may not see relief at the pump by the time they hit the road for the long weekend.
Supplies in the region have been crimped by the ongoing plant-wide turnaround of Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s 100,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Canton, Ohio, with the work set to last into early- to mid-September. Gasoline stockpiles in the broader Midwest region are also below last year’s levels and the five-year average, putting upward pressure on pump prices.
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