Nevada's only crude oil refinery is running again. The Eagle Springs Refinery in Railroad Valley, roughly 260 miles north of Las Vegas, has restarted operations after securing a new state air permit, according to KLAS 8 News Now.
The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection issued the air permit that cleared the way for the restart, and owner Sky Quarry confirmed the news this week, according to a report from smb.coastmountainnews.com. Eagle Springs is operated by Sky Quarry's wholly owned subsidiary, Foreland Refining Corporation, and remains the only crude oil refinery in the state. The Utah-based company said it had completed approximately $300,000 in repairs and upgrades identified through a TAR360 assessment commissioned in 2025.
Sky Quarry executive Marcus Laun called the restart a milestone for the company, saying receiving the permit and bringing Nevada's only crude oil refinery back online is a major step for Sky Quarry, per KLAS. The refinery has a stated nameplate capacity of about 5,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and the company says it is focused on ramping operations toward that full potential, the report notes.
A Thin Supply Cushion
Despite the restart, Sky Quarry reported only about 15,000 barrels of crude oil inventory on hand, with additional supply expected as operations progress, per the same account. At full production, that stockpile would be enough to keep the refinery running for only a few days, according to KLAS. Sky Quarry did not disclose current throughput, production targets, expected refinery revenue or a timetable for reaching full operating capacity, according to Yahoo Finance.
The refinery produces diesel, vacuum gas oil, naphtha and liquid paving asphalt, Yahoo Finance reports. Sky Quarry has said that if more Nevada crude comes to market, Eagle Springs could refine suitable barrels in-state rather than shipping them elsewhere, the coastmountainnews.com report notes. Railroad Valley is currently the only region in Nevada with oil wells in production, according to KLAS.
California Closures Squeeze the Region
The restart lands as California's refining capacity keeps shrinking. Phillips 66 ended refining at its Los Angeles plant in late 2025, and Valero moved to wind down refining at its Benicia facility in early 2026, according to oilmarketdaily.com. That outlet notes California refineries have historically supplied approximately 86% of Nevada's motor fuel, and most gas stations in Las Vegas still receive their supply from refineries in the Los Angeles area, per KLAS.
The Benicia refinery alone processed up to 150,000 barrels of oil a day before Valero moved toward shutting it down by April 2026, citing high costs and strict environmental rules, according to the Benicia Independent. Valero’s announcement and the likely future closure prompted Benicia city leaders to approve four task forces to study the economic and community fallout, since Valero accounts for almost 20% of the city's tax base, the outlet reported. Eagle Springs' 5,000-barrel-per-day capacity is a fraction of what a single major refinery like Benicia or the 730,000-barrel-per-day Port Arthur refinery can process, according to KLAS.
Federal Push and a Rocky Road to Restart
The restart also follows federal pressure to boost domestic oil production. The Interior Department has pressed for more drilling under the Trump administration, and the Bureau of Land Management has announced a lease sale for September 30 offering 20,600 acres for oil and gas development in Nevada, per KLAS. That sale is mandated under Trump administration policy after BLM's regularly scheduled third-quarter lease sale received no bids on 14 parcels; the Working Families Tax Cut Act requires a replacement sale when no bids are received on 25% or more of the acreage offered, KLAS reports. A comparable Utah lease sale generated nearly $4.5 million in revenue, according to the same report. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates federal lands in Nevada hold about 1.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil resources, a figure cited by both KLAS and coastmountainnews.com.
Eagle Springs' path back online hasn't been smooth. The refinery experienced outages in late 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 due to boiler repairs that halted production entirely, according to a report from globenewswire.com. Management had said at the time that repairs were complete and production was expected to resume around June 2026, subject to feedstock procurement, though the restart evidently took longer to materialize. KLAS reports the refinery is valued at $70 million, and Sky Quarry has said it plans to make Nevada-refined products a more meaningful part of the region's fuel supply going forward.
