Nevada's sole oil refinery, the Eagle Springs Refinery in Railroad Valley about 260 miles north of Las Vegas, has resumed operations after the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection issued an air permit. The restart follows $300,000 in repairs and upgrades completed since 2025.
The modest facility can process roughly 5,000 barrels of crude oil per day, a fraction of the 150,000‑barrel capacity of the recently closed Valero Benicia refinery in California and far smaller than the 730,000‑barrel Port Arthur plant in Texas. At full output, it would exhaust Nevada's crude supply in only a few days.
Owned by Utah‑based Sky Quarry and run by its subsidiary Foreland Refining Corporation, the refinery is valued at $70 million. Interim CEO Marcus Laun said, "Receiving this permit and restarting Nevada's only crude oil refinery is a major step for Sky Quarry."
Most gasoline for Las Vegas stations still arrives via pipeline from Los Angeles refineries, but the restart could increase the share of Nevada‑refined product in the regional market. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates federal lands in Nevada contain about 1.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, and the Bureau of Land Management plans a lease sale of 20,600 acres on Sept. 30 under Trump‑era policies.
Sources: 8 News Now
Original reporting: 8 News Now →
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