Delta Air Lines Bought an Oil Refinery. It Didn’t Go as Planned.

Delta Air Lines Bought an Oil Refinery. It Didn’t Go as Planned.

Delta's foray into oil refining illustrates some of the reasons the business was in trouble even before the pandemic.The Delta-owned Monroe Energy refinery, in Trainer, Pa., lost $114 million in the second quarter and its future appears bleak.Credit...Dustin Sonneborn for The New York TimesBy Clifford Krauss and Niraj ChokshiJet fuel is known as the steady eddy of the refinery business, a predictable profit maker that balances the seasonal gyrations of gasoline and diesel sales. But for airlines, it is a headache — a big and unpredictable expense that confounds managers.So Delta Air Lines tried a bold experiment: It bought an oil refinery in 2012 outside Philadelphia, the first such purchase by a major U.S. airline. When jet fuel prices were high, as they were then, Delta figured the refinery, which