How Many Refineries in the US Are Operating?

How many refineries in the US are operating? On January 1, 2026, the EIA counted 128 running out of 130 operable sites in 30 states, with half the national capacity in Texas and Louisiana.

Count the sites the EIA calls operable, the sites actually running or the sites with a crude unit, and you get three totals: 130, 128, 124. One California refinery idled in April 2026 is still inside all three.

The EIA counts refineries once a year, on January 1, in a national table that starts in 1982. The latest edition of its Refinery Capacity Report, published on June 26, 2026, puts atmospheric crude distillation capacity at 18,160,493 b/cd. No state without a refinery in 1982 has one today.

How many refineries each US state has

States are sorted by the 2026 count, with 1982 alongside. Capacity means atmospheric crude distillation, measured by the EIA in barrels per calendar day, and the last column is each state’s percentage of the national total.

Source: EIA, Number and Capacity of Petroleum Refineries by state, 1982 to 2026, retrieved November 5, 2026 · operable refineries on January 1 · License: US government public domain, EIA citation requested

The nine states that had a refinery in 1982 and have none today, with the last year each was counted: Georgia (2014), Virginia (2011), Oregon (2008), Arizona (1995), New York (1993), Florida (1988), Maryland (1986), Missouri (1982) and Nebraska (1982). North Carolina appears only from 1983 to 1992. Alaska is the only state with more refineries than in 1982, 5, up from 4.

Fewer sites, about the same capacity

The US now has under half the operable sites of 1982 and slightly more capacity. It had 301 on January 1, 1982, with 17,889,734 b/cd of distillation capacity, and 130 on January 1, 2026, with 18,160,493 b/cd: a 56.8% fall in the count and a 1.5% rise in capacity. Averaged over every operable site, capacity went from 59,434 to 139,696 b/cd, 2.35 times the 1982 figure.

The fall came early. The count stood at 223 by 1985, then 175 in 1995, 148 in 2010 and 135 in 2020. The EIA table records that pace and gives no cause for it.

Since 1990 the net fall is 75, from 205 to 130. Eco3min’s register of every permanent US refinery shutdown since 1990 lists 90 entries inside the national total. The 15-site difference reflects sites entering or returning to the count: the EIA’s list of recently built refineries names 7 from 2014 onward.

Site size now runs from 1,700 b/cd at Talley Asphalt Products Inc in Kern, California, to 656,400 b/cd at Motiva Enterprises LLC in Port Arthur, Texas. The median site with a crude unit has 91,250 b/cd. The five largest hold 3,080,900 b/cd, 17.0% of the national total and more than the 65 smallest crude sites combined (3,006,056 b/cd).

Why the answer is 130, 128 or 124

The EIA’s glossary counts a refinery as operable if, at the start of the year, it was in operation, idle but “capable of being placed into operation within 30 days”, or under active repair that could finish within 90 days. That definition gives 130. Take out the two idle sites, CPI Operations LLC in Paulsboro, New Jersey (32,000 b/cd), and Foreland Refining Corp in Ely, Nevada (2,000 b/cd), and 128 remain in operation.

Filter the EIA’s site file on atmospheric distillation and 124 remain. Six operable sites report no crude unit and run other process units. They close the list below, at ranks 125 to 130. All six appear in Table 3 of the report and in the state counts, so Texas has 34 refineries on the count and 29 with a crude unit, Louisiana 15 and 14.

The same split explains a figure that circulates in search summaries, 254 refineries in 1982. That is the EIA’s operating column for that year, and the operable column says 301. Either comparison holds inside its own column, 301 to 130 or 254 to 128. Setting 254 against 130 mixes the two and understates the fall by 47 sites.

The count is already out of date

The 130 is a January 1 snapshot, and California has moved since. Valero’s Benicia refinery, 145,000 b/cd or 0.8% of national capacity, is counted as operating in the 2026 report. Valero’s quarterly filing for the second quarter of 2026 says “full idling of all processing units was completed in April 2026” and that it plans to “keep the facilities in a safe, clean, and idled condition”.

The EIA’s monthly numbers have already moved. Its note on the 2026 report says the site “has also ceased refining operations” and that its capacity left the monthly estimates as of March 2026. The annual count has not followed: the next report is scheduled for June 25, 2027. The idle category covers a plant that could return within 30 days, or one under active repair finishing within 90. If Benicia lands there, the operable count holds and one fewer site is running. If it is recorded as shut down, the operable count loses one, other things equal.

Last year’s exits are already out of the 130. Table 11 of the report, New, Shutdown and Reactivated Refineries During 2025, lists Houston Refining in Houston (263,776 b/cd, last operated February 2025) and Phillips 66 in Los Angeles (138,700 b/cd, October 2025). Eco3min follows those exits site by site in its account of US refinery closures since the 2020 peak. In the June 2027 edition, the idle column of the national table counts sites kept on standby, and a shutdown line in Table 11 marks a site that left the count.

Map of US refineries by state, 1982 to 2026

Drag the year slider to redraw the map, then select a state for its count over time and its 2026 sites. California went from 43 to 12, Texas from 65 to 34, Louisiana from 34 to 15. The years 1996 and 1998 stay blank because the EIA ran no survey and nothing is interpolated.

The 130 operable US refineries

The full list for January 1, 2026, largest first, with EIA company and site names in standard case. A capacity of 0 marks a site with no crude unit.

Source: EIA, Refinery Capacity Report 2026 (published June 26, 2026), site file, retrieved November 5, 2026 · Benicia status per Valero’s filing

What this count does not prove

The year 1982 is where the EIA table starts, not a demonstrated peak. This page makes no claim about the years before it, and the 56.8% fall in the count is a fall from that starting line.

An operable refinery is not a busy one. The count says a site could run. How hard the fleet actually runs is tracked in the weekly US refinery utilization dataset, with the thresholds explained in how to read the utilization rate.

The 1.5% rise depends on its endpoints. Capacity peaked at 18,976,085 b/cd in 2020 and has fallen 4.3% since, so a reader starting from 2020 sees a decline where a reader starting from 1982 sees a small gain. Both readings come from the same column.

The count also says nothing about how fuel moves between regions: Texas and Louisiana hold 50.3% of capacity, California 8.3%. Why any one site runs or closes is outside the table too. Margins are one input, covered in the crack spread against refinery utilization.

Questions

How many oil refineries are in the US?

The EIA counted 130 operable refineries on January 1, 2026, of which 128 were operating and 2 were idle. Six of the 130 have no atmospheric distillation unit, so 124 report crude distillation capacity.

How many refineries are in California?

The EIA counted 12 on January 1, 2026, with 1,499,171 b/cd, or 8.3% of US capacity, down from 43 in 1982. The 12 include Valero’s Benicia site, which Valero says was fully idled in April 2026, and exclude Phillips 66 in Los Angeles, which last operated in October 2025.

How many refineries are in Texas?

The EIA counted 34 on January 1, 2026, 29 of them with a crude distillation unit. They hold 6,134,650 b/cd, or 33.8% of US capacity. Texas had 65 in 1982.

When was the last refinery built in the US?

According to the EIA, the newest is Texas International Terminals in Galveston, 45,000 b/cd, which started operating in February 2022. The newest with significant downstream units is Marathon’s Garyville, Louisiana, plant, online in 1977 at 200,000 b/cd and at 617,000 b/cd on January 1, 2026. Hydrocarbon Processing reported in March 2026 that America First Refining plans a new site at the Port of Brownsville, Texas. It is not built and is not in the count.

What is the largest refinery in the US?

Motiva Enterprises LLC in Port Arthur, Texas, with 656,400 b/cd on January 1, 2026. Marathon’s Galveston Bay plant follows at 631,000 b/cd, then Marathon’s Garyville at 617,000 b/cd and ExxonMobil’s Beaumont at 612,000 b/cd.

Method

National counts and capacity come from the EIA’s annual table, state figures from its table by area, and the 130 sites from the Refinery Capacity Report 2026 file. Every state column was summed and matched to the national total for each year, and each state’s sites were matched to its 2026 count, with no difference. The EIA ran no survey for 1996 or 1998, so the CSV leaves both years blank and the charts break there. Capacity is barrels per calendar day. Data retrieved November 5, 2026, under the EIA’s copyright and reuse terms.