[tpurves]

What this article fails to mention is that there are also a record number of empty tankers routed to the US refineries right now, with the intention of shifting still-relatively cheap US oil products to overseas markets where the prices are already much higher and shortages have already hit. The effects of the Iran war on the US economy will really start to kick in over the next several months.

[kyrra]

California also needs a special blend that is only required in California (CARBOB). A lot of that is refined outside of the US, because there is not the capacity domestically. Cali could immediately have more fuel and cheaper prices by dropping their special requirements.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Presumably that might get an emergency resolution in the coming weeks.

[at-fates-hands]

Last year there was some rumbling that Newsom would start to increase production because two refineries were closing sooner than later with the prospect of much higher gas prices. Since CA is really pushing renewables hard and transitioning off of fossil fuels, all the front runners for CA governor have indicated they are steadfastly against increasing production.

Gavin Newsom warms to Big Oil in climate reversal: https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/08/oil-compromise-calif...

I think your idea is a great solution to the problem and would give politicians cover with their environmental base and a win for their constituents.

[dmitrygr]

> Newsom would start to increase production

Newsom is not a refinery nor does he own any refineries. He cannot increase any production by definition.

[AnimalMuppet]

He can allow non-California-special-blend gasoline to be sold in California, as a temporary emergency measure. This does not increase any production, but it massively increases the production of gasoline that can legally be sold in California.

(As a side benefit, he can also blame the need on Trump, if the environmentalists get on his case...)

[colechristensen]

Does this have anything to do with the extensive and happening now or very recent shutdowns of several california refineries?

[flumpmaster]

Yes. Between 2020 and present The refining capacity in California declined by 35% from 1.9 MM BPD to 1.2 MM BPD with the closure of 4 refineries:

Marathon Martinez (2020) converted to renewables. Crude capacity 157 MBD, Renewables capacity 48 MBD

P66 Rodeo (2022) converted to renewables. Crude capacity 120 MBD, Renewables capacity 50 MBD

P66 LA (2025) shutdown. Crude capacity 139 MBD

Valero Bencia (2026) shutdown. Crude capacity 145 MBD

The California Air Resource Board (CARB) has promulgated a revised Cap and Invest rule that threatens the viability of the remaining refineries. All the remaining California refineries have sent CARB, the Governor and the CA legislature letters pointing this out.

California is now a net importer of gasoline following these refinery closures.

[throw03172019]

Is this an emissions reducing based blend?

[shadow28]

Yep, it's a low sulfur, lower volatility gasoline blend (https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/how-california-reg...) which apparently cuts harmful exhaust emissions like carbon monoxide and NOx.

[jsbisviewtiful]

Sounds great for people and the environment. Too bad its production is now in danger thanks to horrible, ignorant decisions by this administration.

[xtiansimon]

And no MTBE, IIRC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTBE_controversy

[keane]

Correct, since 2002: https://arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/gasoline

[flumpmaster]

Yes.

[wilg]

Nice of Donald Trump to force us into a choice between poisoning the air and financial hardship! But at least it was for a good reason: ???

[tharmas]

He's trying to control the oil that goes to China. First, take Maduro then close the Straight of Hormuz (to prevent oil going to China). The rest is just collateral damage as far as he's concerned.

This is all about keeping China down, and preserving American Hegemony. That's his definition of "making America great again". He doesn't care that you're paying more for food, gasoline, etc. and that the rest of the third world will soon be starving.

Gulf States get a swap line (can't let Wall St crash), but you get no bail out because the elites don't care that you are hurting. They care about the Gulf States hurting because that ultimately means Wall St will crash which would hurt the Billionaire elites.

So to sum up, the reason is maintain America's Hegemony and protect the Billionaire class.

[CamperBob2]

Dogs and cats were being eaten, you see. And did you hear her laugh?

[ChoGGi]

Not sure why you're being down voted, I've sadly heard those exact arguments.

[CamperBob2]

Nowadays, this place is basically where Trumpers go to mingle with neo-Luddites.

I don't get it either, but that's the audience that has been cultivated.

[annoyingnoob]

We could die chocking on the air that produces too. Understand the history in CA and the reasons we have special gas. Would you really want to hurt children for cheaper gas? Really?

https://today.usc.edu/las-environmental-success-story-cleane...

[GenerWork]

Those rules around special gasoline were made when both federal and California car exhaust regulations were much looser than today, and electric cars were a complete pipe dream. I've seen estimates ranging for savings from $.25 to $1 per gallon if California dropped the requirements.

>Would you really want to hurt children for cheaper gas?

Nice appeal to emotion.

[jshen]

You didn't really address his main point. Will this lead to higher levels of pollution that will have real health consequences? Oddly you suggest it's not valid to raise concerns around health consequences.

[annoyingnoob]

How does ignoring real harm help? Because it cost you less?

https://www.clarity.io/blog/how-air-pollution-affects-childr...

https://www.clarity.io/blog/a-closer-look-at-los-angeles-inf...

"Poor air quality does not affect all parts of LA equally. Communities of color and low-income residents are disproportionately impacted by polluted air. In certain areas, traffic-related emissions, including nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and benzene concentrations, are up to 60% higher.

A study led by UCLA found that the air in disadvantaged neighborhoods contained not only more fine particulate matter, but also more toxic particulates as well. Places facing the most socioeconomic disadvantages “experience about 65% higher toxicity than people in the most advantaged group,” according to Suzanne Paulson, UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and the senior author of the study.

These same groups often have less access to health care and good nutrition, putting them at an even greater health risk. Everyone deserves to breathe clean air, and communities of color and low-income residents are unfortunately facing the worst of LA’s notorious smog."

Saving a buck at the expense of someone with no control of their situation is a choice.

https://ifunny.co/picture/yes-the-planet-got-destroyed-but-f...

[hparadiz]

It's more emotional to drop an important regulation over a dollar. I was already paying $5 for premium before all this and now it's $5.75. Big deal.

I'd rather have clearer skies.

[annoyingnoob]

You obviously never loved through LA Smog. You never had to stay inside or skip school because the air was too dirty to breathe. Take a look at how it was: https://www.ccair.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LA-smog.jpg

Cars may burn cleaner but they still burn, and there are more of them than ever.

Easing economic pain in exchange for health pain is nonsensical. Breathe from your own tailpipe if its no big deal.

[oceanplexian]

Texas has plenty of refineries and the children there aren’t dying or choking on the air.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

It has to do with LA geography. The surrounding landscape traps the pollution so it cannot dissipate away from the city.

[annoyingnoob]

Different geography/topology. https://www.clarity.io/blog/a-closer-look-at-los-angeles-inf...

[wat10000]

I'm certain the number of children suffering illness or even dying due to air pollution from Texas refineries is more than zero. Not very high, I imagine, but not zero. There is a very real human cost to these things which we really like to ignore.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Would you really want to hurt children for cheaper gas? Really?

Yes. Most voters would, too. "Cheaper gas" understates how serious even a $20/week increase in living costs can be for a household on the margin.

[annoyingnoob]

I'm not sure that most voters that have lived through smog in SoCal would vote for that. It is easy to decide that its okay to pollute a place where you don't live.

[throwaway-11-1]

Love living in the country with the highest GDP per capita than hearing stuff like this.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Love living in the country with the highest GDP per capita than hearing stuff like this

It's reality. It doesn't go away if you ignore it. Aversion to higher gas prices isn't a luxury problem for a lot of people. Any realistic strategy for an energy transition has to acknowledge and accomodate that.

[wat10000]

Not sure what living in Monaco has to do with gas prices in California.

[pear01]

In such a situation - especially heading into the midterms - an export ban may be increasingly probable.

[mjhay]

An export ban wouldn’t really help much: US oil production is (now) predominantly light crude, while US refinery capacity is oriented towards heavy crude from the gulf or Venezuela.

We produce more oil than we use, but we can’t refine it all.

[jandrewrogers]

Refining light crude is essentially the same process as heavy crude with fewer steps. US refineries are designed to handle virtually any kind of crude and are highly configurable. That flexibility is part of what makes their refinery business so successful. US refinery capacity is ~50% larger than their domestic oil production; it is a major export business for the US.

The real cost to not processing heavy crude oil is that many refinery assets will be sitting idle because they aren't needed to process light crude.

[mschuster91]

> An export ban wouldn’t really help much: US oil production is (now) predominantly light crude, while US refinery capacity is oriented towards heavy crude from the gulf or Venezuela.

That's not too much of a problem. A refinery tooled for heavy sour crude technically can process light, heavy, sour and sweet crude - the other way around would be an issue because you'd need to construct hydrocracker and desulfurizer stages first.

The issue is a financial one. A refinery is often a multi-billion dollar asset, and having significant parts of its value sit around unused for prolonged times means write-offs which means stonk number go down, and as we all know there is nothing more important for the economy than the stonk market.

Another, but smaller, problem is that running a refinery on different crude compositions means that the volume ratio of the various oil products changes, and the refinery may find itself sitting on more, say, heavy fuel oil than it can store, sell and ship. And once the tanks are full, production has to stop.

[JumpCrisscross]

> An export ban wouldn’t really help much

It could help in the long term by underwritig refinery retooling. The problem is you'd almost certainly need public support for those investments, given they could be undone by the lifting of such a ban. (An export ban would also trash America's reputation with our import partners.)

[badc0ffee]

> US refinery capacity is oriented towards heavy crude from the gulf or Venezuela.

Or from Alberta.

[pear01]

It may be a bad idea (for various reasons), but it is one already being floated. Here is a press release just today from a California congressman who is proposing a bill to this effect.

https://sherman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congre...

If you agree with the parent that Americans are going to feel more energy market pain in the coming months I would imagine the pressure for this will only increase.

[TheGRS]

This is way outside of my area of expertise, but I thought US export oil was not fungible with what we consume.

[oceanplexian]

It’s actually harder (requires more advanced technology) to refine heavy and sour crude. The US refining industry process this type of oil mainly because it’s more profitable not because of some limitation.

American oil on the other hand (As in extracted out of the ground) is actually too high quality for domestic consumption therefore gets shipped overseas and sold at a premium. The weird economics of this are made possible by globalization. While it’s not fungible on a dime it’s easy to solve and the US really does hold all the cards when it comes to the petroleum industry.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Fake numbers, but I have heard it is something like the US produces 100 units of light crude -exports it all, and imports 50 units of heavy. Net exporter, but the stuff we use domestically for gas refineries comes from elsewhere.

Technically, the refineries can be retooled to take a different blend, but it is expensive to do.

[jandrewrogers]

US crude oil is exported to foreign refineries for blending purposes. By blending low-quality crude with high-quality crude it can reduce the total costs to the refiner even after accounting for the fact that you had to buy high-quality crude to improve the properties of the domestic crude.

[JumpCrisscross]

> an export ban may be increasingly probable

"U.S. crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves decreased 1% from 46.4 billion barrels to 46.0 billion barrels at year-end 2024" [1]. At February's 180 million barrel/month import rate, that's only 21 years of supply in the ground.

Reliance on oil, for America, is a long-term reliance on foreign oil.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/

[2] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...

[Avicebron]

I suppose it's too much to ask that oil produced in the US be used for the US people?

[legitster]

Depending on the type of oil and the refinery availability it's not that simple. Not all sources of oil can go to all refineries.

Also, there's the bigger geopolitical problems that creates. If the US knocks over the global energy supply and then retreats and abandons our trading partners, the knock-on effects would be even worse.

A large part of the reason WWII existed was the breakdown of international trade during the Great Depression. Countries without domestic supplies of their own were forced to grab territory instead of peacefully trading for what they needed.

[at-fates-hands]

How do you think the UAE leaving OPEC will effect the oil markets in the coming months and years? Its being touted as having a major impact.

[thuuuomas]

Why would they sell it for less when they could sell it for more?

We’re witnessing “American exceptionalism” transform from a brash claim to a whiny demand in real time.

[abhiyerra]

The type of oil that the US produces (light and sweet) can't be handled by US refineries which need (heavy sours). Why we are still a major importer of oil.

[JimBlackwood]

I don’t think it is. If we can then also ensure the US stops meddling in international affairs, we can all be happy!

[tharmas]

That's what Canadian oil is for. The USA gets it at a discount price.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Where you can go to monitor this? Does it require an expensive AIS data feed?

[daedrdev]

Once again, its illegal to use that oil in California due to (imo bad) environmental regulations

[flumpmaster]

If you are referring to American light crude oil grades such as WTI (West Texas Intermediate) that is not correct. That oil could be refined in California. It would have to come by tanker from the gulf coast through the Panama Canal to get there. Until recently it would have to come on a Jones Act US flagged tanker (expensive, scarce). That requirement has been temporarily waived.

[daedrdev]

Right I forgot we waived the jones act. Refiners are hard to come by in CA though as they keep shutting down