INSIDE LOOK: Minnesota oil refinery breaks down rising gas prices, when costs could drop

Minnesota gas prices are running below the national average in part because crude oil pipelines reach the state directly from Canada and North Dakota. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS anchor Chris Egert was granted access to the Pine Bend Refinery in Dakota County, where workers produce seven million gallons of gas per day.

The refinery, which is well over twice the size of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, can fill 500,000 15-gallon tanks every single day.

It’s one of three operated by Flint Hills Resources, a refining and chemicals company owned by Koch Incorporated.

Pine Bend is the largest refinery in a non-oil-producing state in the U.S., and pipelines carrying crude oil from Alberta and North Dakota reach Minnesota first and then split off to the Twin Cities.

“We are geographically blessed to be here in Minnesota. I know it doesn’t seem that way in the winter, but we really are,” Flint Hills Resources Vice President of Public Affairs Jake Reint said.

Reint emphasized that if the Iran War were to end, there would still be no exact timeline for when prices at the pump might drop.

“We know it’s not gonna be overnight,” Reint said. “The bottom line is, if the Strait opens up tomorrow, no one has a clear line of sight into what else has happened up and down the value chain that has to be brought back online, so that can take some time for the market to truly stabilize. But as long as that Canadian crude keeps flowing here to Rosemount, it shouldn’t cost quite as much.”

Engineers at the refinery process 375,000 barrels of crude oil every day, turning it into several products, including asphalt, jet fuel, gas, and diesel fuel.

According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of regular gas in Minnesota was $4.05 on Thursday — down from $4.23 a week ago but still up $1.09 from this time last year.