ExxonMobil Joliet Refinery Shut by Power Outage Amid Tight Fuel Supplies

ExxonMobil's 264,000-barrel-per-day Joliet refinery went offline Sunday after a power outage at about 3:30 p.m. Central time triggered its safety flare and plant-wide shutdown. Power returned around 7 p.m. The company is assessing status and investigating the cause. IIR Energy said units were stabilizing, with normal service expected by week's end. The plant can produce about 11 million gallons of gasoline and diesel daily. Patrick De Haan said the downtime "will be costing this refinery millions" and full rates may take several days to a week after uncontrolled power loss. He flagged BP Whiting as partially down for maintenance and said Great Lakes spot gas prices rose 35 cents a gallon from the Joliet outage. BP Whiting warned of planned flaring over several days, not an emergency; it locked out 800 union workers in March and operates with about half its normal staff. U.S. diesel's national average surpassed $6 a gallon last week. Reuters noted Iran war and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries have strained supplies; nwitimes cited a 30-cent Northwest Indiana gas rise on geopolitical tensions. The record does not link those strains to the Joliet shutdown. Outage cause and exact full-rate return remain unresolved.