Almost no new oil refineries are built in the US. The newest is Texas International Terminals’ 45,000 barrel-per-day plant in Galveston, which started in February 2022, and the last large refinery built from scratch was Marathon’s Garyville, Louisiana, in 1977 (EIA). Here are the new refinery projects, restarts and expansions to watch, and the closures that have outpaced them.
Key takeaways
- America First Refining announced plans in March 2026 for a new refinery at the Port of Brownsville, Texas, designed to process about 60 million barrels a year of US light shale oil (company release).
- Three refineries with about 400,000 barrels per day closed between 2025 and early 2026 (EIA).
- Existing refineries keep growing: US capacity is only slightly below its 2020 record even though there are fewer refineries.
- Nevada’s only crude refinery restarted in September 2026.
New US refinery projects
| Project | Location | Size | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| America First Refining | Port of Brownsville, Texas | About 60 million barrels a year of light shale oil | Announced March 2026 with a 20-year offtake agreement; groundbreaking targeted for Q2 2026 |
| Meridian Davis Refinery | Near Belfield, North Dakota | 49,500 barrels per day (proposed) | Permitted years ago; no construction as of December 2025 |
| Eagle Springs restart (Sky Quarry) | Near Ely, Nevada | About 5,000 barrels per day | Restarted September 2026 |
| Chevron Pasadena expansion | Pasadena, Texas | Light crude capacity raised to 125,000 barrels per day | Completed, with startup through early 2025 |
Recent refinery closures
| Refinery | Capacity (barrels per day) | Closed |
|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia Energy Solutions, Pennsylvania | 335,000 | 2019-2020 |
| Shell Convent, Louisiana | 211,146 | 2020 |
| Marathon Martinez, California (converted to renewable fuels) | 161,000 | 2020 |
| Phillips 66 Alliance, Louisiana | 255,600 | 2021 |
| LyondellBasell Houston, Texas | 263,776 | March 2025 |
| Phillips 66 Los Angeles, California | 138,700 | October 2025 |
| Valero Benicia, California | 145,000 | Early 2026 |
Why the US rarely builds new refineries
- Cost and time: a large refinery takes many years and billions of dollars to permit and build, and pays back over decades.
- Demand uncertainty: refiners weigh long-term gasoline demand against electric vehicles and efficiency.
- Permitting: air permits and local opposition can delay projects for years, as the Davis refinery in North Dakota shows.
- Expansion is cheaper: adding capacity at existing refineries, as ExxonMobil did at Beaumont, costs far less than a new site.
What it means for jobs
Closures cut jobs where they happen, but the remaining refineries are running harder and expanding, which keeps demand high for process, reliability and inspection engineers on the Gulf Coast. See the main oil refinery jobs, or every operating refinery on our US oil refineries map.
Hiring for a refinery project? Apollo Technical recruits process, chemical, mechanical, electrical and controls engineers for refining and petrochemical projects. See our Houston engineering recruiters.
