[m463]

I think there's another force at play here - the price increase is flexible because people expect to pay more for "special" gas.

Sentiment affects pricing and whenever some disaster or other event happens, the market is pretty efficient at capitalizing on it. This goes for all kinds of things like ukraine and natural gas, chickens and eggs, EVs and electricity pricing, etc...

[dehrmann]

All those examples are all supply shocks. CA gas prices have been high for a long time, and I doubt most people see CA gas as "special," so surely another refiner would have stepped in by now.