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Utah motorists haven't entirely escaped the epidemic of refinery shutdowns that have plagued drivers across the country by reducing the supply of gasoline and raising the price of the automotive fuel.
Part of Sinclair Oil Co.'s refinery in Sinclair, Wyo., which sends a portion of its refined product by pipeline into the Salt Lake Valley, is expected to be down for the next 10 days while repairs are made to the facility's catalytic cracking unit, or cat cracker.
"Oh, jeez," Rolayne Fairclough, spokeswoman for AAA Utah, said when told of the shutdown Tuesday. "That certainly doesn't bode well for gasoline prices here."
The refinery, which processes 71,500 barrels of crude oil a day, experienced a power outage on Sunday that caused a temporary shutdown.
During restart, refinery personnel discovered there was internal damage to the cat cracker, a sophisticated piece of equipment unit used to break the long molecular chains found in crude oil into smaller pieces so they can more easily be refined into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
"We're not entirely sure yet, but we believe the damage was caused by the power outage," Sinclair spokesman Clint Ensign said. "Finding internal damage in a cracker isn't common but it does happen now and then. It is just something you occasionally have to deal when you're in the refinery business."
The damage will reduce production at the refinery by about 22,000 barrels a day until the unit can be brought back on line, Ensign said.
Although the Sinclair refinery also produces diesel and jet fuel, Ensign said the damaged cat cracker primarily was used in the production of gasoline.
"Given the current tight supplies of gasoline here, any disruption in production isn't good news," said Lee Peacock of the Utah Petroleum Association.
Sinclair's refinery sends some of its gasoline to a pipeline terminal in North Salt Lake. However, it also sends its refined production to Boise, by way of Utah, and directly into Colorado. "And some of it stays in Wyoming," Ensign said.
A furnace explosion and fire on Sunday that sent flames shooting into the sky above the Silver Eagle Refinery in Woods Cross turned out to have damaged only a unit that primarily produced diesel fuel, leaving the facility's gasoline production unaffected.
Nationally, gasoline prices have been driven higher, in part, by a number of unexpected refinery outages and shutdowns that have reduced gasoline inventories at a time of the year when demand for gasoline typically is at its highest.
AAA Utah reported the average price of unleaded regular gasoline in Utah on Tuesday was $3.10, a penny higher than Monday's price and 6 cents higher than the average price that motorists nationally are paying at the pump.
Utah motorists daily consume about 3 million gallons of gasoline, which takes about 72,000 gallons of crude oil to produce, according to data from the Utah Geological Survey.
* $3.10 is the average price of unleaded regular gasoline in Utah on Tuesday.
Source: AAA Utah