‘Uh oh’: Panic as major US oil refinery shutdown creates price-shock ‘perfect storm’

A major U.S. oil refinery in Illinois that abruptly shut down this week remained closed as of Thursday despite expectations that it would resume operation by the end of this week, sparking widespread panic that the incident could trigger the “perfect storm” for a catastrophic price shock.

“A perfect storm. Created wilfully [sic],” wrote Ravn Holøyen, a prominent Norwegian labor organizer and activist, in a social media post on X Friday.

Last Sunday, Exxon Mobil shut down its oil refinery in Joliet, Illinois following a power outage, though later declined to say whether the closure was directly linked to the outage, Reuters reported. The refinery produces around 11 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel per day, according to the company’s website, providing fuel to Americans “primarily across the Midwest.”

With gasoline prices already soaring to unprecedented levels across the United States, the timing of the refinery’s extended closure triggered fears it could send prices spiraling even further out of control.

“The facility was probably running above capacity and broke. Crack spreads are going to scream,” warned Philip Pilkington, an Irish podcaster, author and macroeconomist, on Friday in a social media post on X.

Others, like Texas-based software engineer and Ukrainian Armed Forces veteran Constantine Kalinovskiy, laid the blame for worsening oil-price surge squarely at President Donald Trump’s feet.

“Trump f----- up every f------ thing he touched,” Kalinovskiy wrote Friday in a social media post on X.

Australian columnist Miranda Devine suggested the refinery’s closure could even play a role in the upcoming midterms.

“Uh oh. Midterm headwinds getting worse,” she wrote Friday in a social media post on X, reacting to a report on the closure’s impact on the Midwest.

Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran has been cited as the key source for the ongoing global surge in oil prices. In the United States, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.47 on Friday, a more than 17-cent increase from just a week prior, and a more than 40-cent increase when compared with a month ago, according to AAA.