Posted on 05/03/2025 3:49:59 AM PDT by Libloather
Multiple refineries in California have recently declared their intentions to shutter operations, leaving the Golden State uncertain about future fuel supplies and impacts on prices at the pump.
Valero Energy Corp. was the latest to make such an announcement, alerting the California Energy Commission (CEC) last month that it would “idle, restructure or cease refining operations” at its Benicia refinery by the end of April 2026.
The Valero notice followed similar news at Phillips 66 in October, when that company said it would be ceasing operations at its Los Angeles-area refinery in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Firms are attributing these decisions to the restrictive regulatory environment in California, which is home to the nation’s biggest car market, despite an unparalleled clean energy push.
“We know that California gasoline consumption is going to decline over time,” Severin Borenstein, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, told The Hill.
“We are going to have exit, and we need to figure out — how are we going to handle that exit?” Borenstein continued.
Following Valero’s announcement that it would be reducing or closing operations at Benicia, in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) reportedly sent a letter to the CEC, directing the regulators to guarantee reliable fuel supplies.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I think the Federal Government has a legal opportunity to step in here and referee this situation. It is actually a National Interstate Commerce and critical infrastructure situation. Ca is causing direct harm and hardships to two other States besides themselves. It is a matter of Interstate National Energy Security and absolutely within their Federal jurisdiction to intervene.
“Neither state produces much oil or natural gas. Even if you had a refinery in NV or AZ, the product would have to come from somewhere else.”
Absolutely... The crude to refine in the first place. And the only two sources are Ca by way of the sea and Texas.
I took this in the San Francisco area a couple of weeks ago.
There was a finance guy on my local radio station who said with refinery closures and yet another gas tax to hit July 1st we’re looking at gas at $6.60/gallon by the end of the year.
As of right now in SoCal it’s becoming harder to find gas under $5.00/gallon.
All while Gavin Newson gloats from his three-caravan SUV limo.
The absence of much oil and natural gas production in NV and AZ, the distance from the Permian Basin in TX and southeastern NM, and the green energy lunacy in CA necessitate another way to get petroleum products. The answer should be using a harbor on the Gulf of California in Sonora, Mexico, for a deep water port for tankers. Mexico may be a pit of corruption but they are persuadable with the proper financial arrangements.
There's your money line.
As Gavin Newsom gloats and repeatedly proclaims publicly that the high price of gas in California (almost $5.00/gallon) is due to "gas companies gouging consumers."
Why aren't they gouging in other states like they are in California, Gavin? Look in the mirror. You and your policies are personally driving gas to $6.60/gallon by the end of the year with yet another gas tax hit to hit July 1st and driving oil companies out of the state.
There is no uncertainty. CaCaLand will import everything, from the CCP. As to replacing it with leccy, no F@#$in chance. Impossible to upgrade the transmission infrastructure without Trillions of $$.
I understand. But it would be more beneficial to lock down California’s whole supply infrastructure in the name of National Interest. They are threatening the security and welfare interests of the whole country because they are in control of all west coast port supply. It is not theirs to screw with and control. Supply does not belong to them just because they border the coast. This is why Interstate Commerce laws were put into law in the first place. So that States like California cannot regulate or hamper physical supply to the rest of the Nation. They have no right to Dam up the river and block the rest of the country from that supply access. Intentional or not...
“Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) reportedly sent a letter to the CEC, directing the regulators to guarantee reliable fuel supplies.”
because the CEC owns so many of its own oil fields and refineries, right? ... newsom might as well have sent a letter to Nayib Bukele ordering him to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the USA ...
Contrary to the headline, I don’t think there’s much uncertainty about it at all. Californians will pay even higher prices for gas.
The democrats will accept the oil refineries leaving Kalifornia as a victory for themselves. They won’t be happy until Kalifornia is totally void of all human life.
Satanism at its best.
“Screw California. Let the dems explain to their voters why there are gas shortages. I suggest the oil companies stop doing business at all in California.”
The problem is that CA’s bad energy policies effect gasoline supply and pricing in neighboring states. Arizona, for example, receives nearly all of its gasoline from California, and a small amount from West Texas. This is not by choice, but the result of national petroleum distribution policy and infrastructure.
The legislature proposes that the state govt. take over all the remaining refineries. That will add another $300-$500 billion of corruption and incompetence to the state debt.
California has pretty massive oil deposits it just refuses to develop them anymore. USGS says there is 61 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil still in place. That’s equal to the Permian basin in total oil remaining in place.
https://explorer.aapg.org/story/articleid/65480/one-family-three-giant-oil-fields-in-los-angeles
“California has pretty massive oil deposits it just refuses to develop them anymore.”
Yep, that is true.
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