US Gulf Coast oil refinery outages and port closures are increasing, according to a Wednesday midday ET report by S&P Global Platts, the leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets. Related gas factbox: Production rises, demand remains down While some Texas refiners were beginning to restart operations Wednesday as Tropical Storm Harvey moved into Louisiana, others were bringing plants down, causing a further reduction in available refining capacity. Motiva, Total and Valero shut their Port Arthur, Texas plants, although Valero was preparing to restart its Corpus Christi refinery and Marathon was restarting its Texas City plant. The Port Arthur outages bring the storm-related outages to 3.20 million b/d, or 17.3% of total US capacity. Assuming refiners cutting runs or in the process of returning are at 50% of capacity, the total downed capacity rises to 4.08 million b/d (22% of the US […]