U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced plans to build a new oil refinery along the southern U.S. border, with backing from India’s largest private-sector firm, Reliance Industries. The project will be located at the port of Brownsville and is expected to process about 168,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
Trump revealed the plan on his Truth Social platform as U.S. motorists grapple with rising gasoline prices following the U.S.–Israel war with Iran.
The announcement also comes as Democrats and Republicans prepare for midterm elections that will determine control of Congress in the final two years of his presidency.
According to project developer America First Refining, the refinery will be designed to process light, sweet crude from American shale fields oil that many existing Gulf Coast facilities cannot efficiently handle because they were built to process heavier crude grades.
The company said Reliance Industries has signed a binding 20-year agreement to purchase refined products from the facility, a move officials say could help reduce India’s trade surplus with the United States, a long-standing concern raised by Trump.
Construction is expected to begin in the second quarter of the year, with industry estimates suggesting the refinery could cost roughly $6.7 billion based on typical construction costs per barrel of refining capacity.
However, some analysts questioned the need for another refinery along the U.S. Gulf Coast, which already hosts eight of the country’s ten largest refining facilities and serves as a major export hub for fuels to South America.
Experts say the Brownsville location could indicate the project will focus heavily on exports due to limited local fuel demand and pipeline connections to other parts of the United States.
Reliance Industries operates the world’s largest refining complex in Jamnagar with a capacity of about 1.4 million barrels per day and reported revenue of roughly $125 billion last year.
U.S. refining capacity stood at around 18.4 million barrels per day at the end of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Industry analysts say capacity is expected to expand gradually into the 2030s, even as some facilities close due to tightening environmental regulations in states such as California.