Indiana Refinery Outage Causes Gas Price Spike Across Midwest

The refinery will produce around 11.5 million fewer gallons of gasoline a day if an issue with equipment is not resolved soon, said GasBuddy senior petroleum analyst Patrick DeHaan.

Ontarians should be prepared for huge spikes in gas prices in the coming days, a Toronto analyst says.

Gas prices could jump by as much as $1 a gallon across the Midwest, including in Kentucky and Indiana, after production problems reportedly triggered an outage at BP’s Whiting Refinery in Northern Indiana.

Over the weekend, one of the crude processing units at the refinery in Whiting, Indiana had a mechanical breakdown.

Prices as of Wednesday in Tennessee are hovering around the $2 mark.

“Unfortunately we just can’t get around it”, said DeHaan.

“In many ways, this has come at the worst time for drivers given that we are still in the busy summer driving season”, AAA Michigan spokesperson Susan Hiltz said in statement.

In many areas in the Midwest the prices have jumped 40 cents and experts are expecting them to go higher. A BP station near 27th St. & St. Paul’s Ave. was charging $3.19 for regular. Gas in McCracken County held steady around $2.251, according to GasBuddy.com. It’s simple economics… Suppliers are bringing in new supply from outside the region. Moser said it’s the largest two-day increase in wholesale gas prices that he’s seen in his 20 years in the business.

Before the Whiting incident, gas prices were falling as crude production is continuously increasing.

White said that local prices could go higher, with some estimates putting the increase at 15 cents or more before all is said and done.

But there’s a good explanation as to why gas and oil prices don’t always follow the same trend.