While the price of crude oil is down, the cost of gas across the Midwest is not. It is now operating at less than half of its 430,000 barrels-per-day capacity.
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“The problem is BP’s refinery is the seventh largest in the nation, the largest in the Midwest”. “Temporarily prices could move in the opposite direction as a result of those unexpected issues”. He expects prices at the pump, now up to around $2.70 a gallon could peak at over $3 a gallon by the weekend.
A 250,000 barrel-per-day crude distillation unit went down because of a mechanical breakdown, and it’s not immediately clear how long it will take to fix, according to sources familiar with the situation.
AAA said until today gas prices had fallen for 26 consecutive days, due in part to the increased production of oil in the U.S. and the addition of 32 new oil rigs over the past six weeks, pushing down oil prices.
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RBOB gasoline in the New York Harbor was virtually unchanged from Monday at $1.6937 a gallon, but up 7 cents a gallon from Friday’s finish. “So when one of them goes down, it has a huge impact”.
