CHICAGO — BP PLC is shipping about 10 million gallons of European gasoline up the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes to supply the Chicago market, which has faced supply shortages since fire damaged close Citgo’s nearby Lemont refinery last month.

"It's very unusual," Joanne Shore, an analyst with the U.S. Energy Information Administration, told the Chicago Tribune. "Normally, the Midwest region would have no gasoline coming in from Europe, and almost nothing from Canada."

Most of the Midwest's gasoline supply comes from the Gulf Coast, primarily by pipeline. Some supplies also are sent by barge up the Mississippi River. The Citgo facility produced an estimated 85,000 barrels of gasoline per day, or roughly 2 percent of the demand in the region. It was shut down by a fire on August 14, and repairs are expected to take about six months.