U.S. oil refining recovers, with outages extended through January

U.S. oil refineries are likely to resume operations by January 2023.  

Temperatures in the U.S. have dropped well below freezing. The cold snap forced the facilities along the Gulf Coast to suffer losses and forced them to suspend further operations. In fact, their average output is 3.58 million barrels per day, representing 20% of the motor fuel supply for the U.S. market.  

Motiva Enterprises in Port Arthur and Petroleos Mexicanos in Deer Park are expected to resume operations in the first half of January 2023. The refineries will restart in two weeks if no failures are detected. The companies said that the freeze in December proved to be less severe than in February 2021. Therefore, the plants can resume operation as soon as possible.

Oil refinery, owned by Exxon Mobil, is also on track to reach full capacity.

LyondellBasell Industries appeared to be in the early stages of restarting production at its Houston facility.

Marathon Petroleum Corporation, holding the second-largest production unit in the Gulf Coast after Motiva, is planning to return to previous volumes by the end of this week.