ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) lost power at its Joliet, Illinois refinery around 3:30 p.m. Sunday, triggering emergency flaring and a plant-wide shutdown. GasBuddy petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan first reported the outage, describing it on X as a “total power outage” and posting photos of dark smoke rising from the site. Power returned to the site by about 7 p.m., though Exxon spent Monday still assessing the units, and IIR Energy’s latest note pegs a full restart before the weekend.
The plant supplies about 6% of everything the Midwest can refine — enough gasoline and diesel in a single day to fill up roughly half a million vehicles — running mostly on Canadian crude that comes in by pipeline. The same thing happened in 2024, when the refinery stayed offline for weeks and the EPA had to grant Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin an emergency fuel waiver.
De Haan also flagged BP’s Whiting, Indiana refinery, the largest in the Midwest at 440,000 barrels a day, which is in the middle of scheduled upkeep of its own — BP has told nearby residents to expect some flaring they might notice in the days ahead. De Haan said he is watching regional fuel prices closely as a result, though the seasonal move to winter-blend gasoline should soften some of that pressure.
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Diesel prices were already at record highs before the Joliet outage started. GasBuddy put the national average at $6.183 a gallon this week, up 31.6 cents from the week before.
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