From USA Today:
The nation's largest oil refinery shuts down as Hurricane Harvey floods Texas
Flood waters closed oil refineries Wednesday along the Texas Gulf Coast, including the nation's largest, as Hurricane Harvey showed its power to ravage the energy infrastructure and drive up gasoline prices.
Some 15 refineries were going off line from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Port Arthur, Texas, the Energy Department reported. The list included the largest refinery in the U.S., the Saudi-owned Motiva plant in Port Arthur, which began what it called "a controlled shutdown."
Taken together, the closures represent about 25% of U.S. refining capacity, GasBuddy.com petroleum analyst Patrick DeHaan said.
"It's a chilling effect on the refining industry, which is in a dire state right now," DeHaan said.
Just ahead of the Labor Day holiday weekend, one of the top travel weekends of the year, DeHaan estimated Wednesday that gas prices would increase 15 cents to 25 cents per gallon nationwide as a result of Harvey. Earlier, he had predicted a boost of 5 to 15 cents.
We have two refineries up here so it will be interesting to see what happens to the local prices. They will probably jack them because they can.
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