Disruptions to global oil product flows, still strong refining margins, and lowered U.S. refinery utilization are expected to have bolstered the quarterly earnings of American oil refiners in the first quarter of 2024, analysts told Reuters. Profits are expected to be lower than in 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine upended markets and pushed up refining margins, but U.S. refiners are still set to report in the coming days strong earnings for the first quarter of the year.
were also boosted by planned and unplanned outages at refineries, including the Whiting, Indiana, refinery of BP, which was shut for most of February and half of March after a power outage prompted a temporary shut down of the facility. The 435,000 barrels-per-day refinery, the largest refining complex in the Midwest, was offline for around six weeks, pushing U.S. fuel supply and refinery utilization lower in the first quarter of 2024. U.S.