Oil-Refinery Shutdown Signals Growing Challenges for Sector

A key oil refinery for U.S. East Coast consumers is halting operations after escalating environmental scrutiny made it impossible for backers to obtain desperately needed financing.

The owners of the Limetree Bay refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands announced plans Monday to shut the 200,000-barrel-a-day facility and dismiss more than 250 workers just weeks after a federal crackdown over a series of pollution incidents.

The demise of Limetree Bay is the most dramatic fallout from the Biden administration’s crusade to wean the world’s biggest economy off fossil fuels since the January cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline project. It’s also ...