America is building its first new oil refinery in nearly 50 years

America is planning to build its first new oil refinery in nearly 50 years. CNBC's Brian Sullivan has the details. Sign up for the Power Insider newsletter for real-time insights into the rapidly evolving world of energy at the #linkinbio or the link on screen. #CNBC #oilrefinery America is building its first new oil refinery in nearly 50 years. America is planning to build its first new oil refinery in nearly 50 years. The project is called America First Refining. America First Refining. It is planned for the Port of Brownsville, Texas. Refinery is designed to process light shale oil from the Permian bases of Texas. America First Refining. Gasoline, Diesel, Jet Fuel. gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The refinery expected. Brian Sullivan, CNBC. The refinery expected of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent jobs once it begins operating, but this all assumes the factory actually does get built. We are still years out. Now, don't quibble. There was a smaller refinery built in America a couple of years ago, but many ask, why has it taken for America to build a big new refinery, one that really moves the needle on oil? The answer, of course, is complicated, but there are two main points. Money. Regulation. Money and regulation. Building. The Challenge of Building a New Refinery. BILLIONS TO BUILD. YEARS TO EARN BACK. YEARS OF PERMITTING. COMPLEX APPROVAL PROCESS. a brand new refinery can cost several billions of dollars. It will take years or decades to earn that money back on a company's investment. So instead of starting from scratch, the industry has chosen to expand refinery capacity that already exists. Those existing plants have added capacity and mostly kept up American demand. Regulation, also a huge part of the story, just trying to get the permits to start building refinery, that can also take years and that can also cost a lot of money. So yes, America went almost 50 years without building a major new refinery. we stopped refining oil, far from it, because it made more economic sense to just expand we already have. But now that may be changing. And maybe in a couple of years we could get the first big new refinery built in about 50 years. Time will tell. Stay tuned.