BP refinery problems in Indiana could cause gas hike for Midwest

But GasBuddy senior analyst Patrick DeHaan said the problems with Whiting’s main distillation equipment began Saturday.

Prices are expected to rise across all of western and central Canada as well.

Gasoline prices could spike by 30 cents a gallon in the next couple of weeks.

According to BP’s website, the Whiting refinery is capable of producing over 19 million gallons of refined fuel per day.

“Sometimes it only takes a few days for a refinery to restart, sometimes it goes on for weeks”, DeHaan said. Their costs are going down so they can two things: “they can hold their prices and drop it at a far slower rate, thus keeping prices higher, or stations can quickly pas along the drops and forego any additional profits”, DeHaan said. In the Cincinnati area, prices averaged $2.54, up from $2.43 a gallon.

Nationally, the average price this morning was $2.58 a gallon. “There’s been a push to be independent, and we’re seeing that now, and drivers are seeing pretty good savings”. This is because there are fewer refineries in the U.S. than there were thirty years ago, DeHaan said. The refinery is the seventh largest in the country and largest in the Midwest.

BP sold off refineries in Texas and California in 2013 to focus its U.S. refining operations on plants with easy access to Canadian crude.