Fuels marketers in the Midwest who began breathing easy as the summer headed toward a close without a major price spike or supply disruption apparently were a tad premature, as the recent fire and explosion at Citgo Petroleum Corp.’s Lemont, Ill. refinery has hindered gasoline supply and put a sudden halt to the late-summer price slide in the region.

Following the Aug. 14 incident – followed by the structural failure of a distillation tower at the facility’s crude unit several days later that will take some six months and $25 million to repair – Citgo asked the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to step in and see what might be done to help offset the loss of supply in the region. In a statement released by the company, W. A. DeVore, Citgo's senior vice president for supply, marketing and lubricants, asked the government agencies to "determine what help they can provide to ease the gasoline supply situation in the Chicago and Milwaukee markets."