Midwest refinery outage is affecting petroleum product markets

Spot petroleum product prices at the Chicago trading hub are increasing after an unplanned outage of bp's refinery in Whiting, Indiana, on February 1. The 435,000-barrel-per-day (b/d) refinery, the largest in the Midwest (PADD 2), has been offline since then because of a power outage. Inventories of motor gasoline and distillate fuel in the Midwest are higher than average for this time of year, which could limit the outage's effects on product availability and pricing.