April 21, 2025 [ FOX26 News]- Another oil refinery will soon be closing in California.
That’s in addition to a refinery already scheduled to close before the end of this year, 2025.just a few months from now.
Wednesday’s announcement now setting off alarm bells in Sacramento, throughout the state… and beyond.
“Our fuel supply is in jeopardy,” cautioned valley Congressman Vince Fong. “This is not a distant concern. This is not an academic conversation. This is happening right now!”
The news broke Wednesday morning.
Valero Energy Corporation announcing that its subsidiary, Valero Refining Company-California, had submitted notice to the California Energy Commission of its intent to idle, restructure, or cease refining operations at Valero’s Benicia refinery” by the end of April, 2026.
California Governor Gavin Newsom was at a news conference in Stanislaus County when asked about the announcement
“I can assure you, beginning last night we had all hands and we’re in the process of addressing any anxiety that may be created or any market disruption that may be created by that announcement,” reassured Newsom.
But, the “anxiety” was already in motion. Gas Buddy-dot-com’s Senior Petroleum Analyst Patrick De Haan posting on X;
“It’s clear that the political environment in California has been hostile to refiners, and the state badly needs to revise its mentality or face a declining number of refineries and higher prices.”
It was a sentiment that was echoed by valley congressman Vince Fong.
“This is something that is not created by the market,” Fong asserted. “This is something that is directly caused by Gavin Newsom’s poor energy policies.”
Policies such as ABX2-1 signed into law by Governor Newsom October 14th of 2024, tightening the state’s control over the California transportation fuels market.
Policies that Fong says, he and others warned the governor about.
“Not only did I warn the governor, but the governor of Arizona and the governor of Nevada,” Fong exclaimed. Arizona and Nevada. they both warned the governor, bipartisan concern, that this was going to lead to shortages and this was going to cause refinery closures
along with higher gasoline prices, job losses and not enough energy to power or attract new businesses to the state,” Fong continued.
“What can the governor do to change that,” I asked.
Fong answered, “We got to act now. We actually have to begin to reevaluate our entire energy policy of the state, remove the obstacles, remove the mandates, the restrictions and the barriers that are holding us back and provide the incentives and investments to not only build more energy infrastructure but to expand our energy production.”
“Hopefully the governor hears you,” I replied.
“I hope so too,” Fong responded.
Patrick De Haan, the oil industry analyst we mentioned earlier in this story, put some more numbers to what the closure of Valero’s Benicia refinery will mean, posting
“WOW: Valero will be shutting down its 170kbpd (thousand barrels per day) Benicia, Ca refinery by April, 2026. Coupled with the loss of $psx’s (Philipp 66’s) 139kbpd Los Angeles refinery later this year, will drop the number of refineries in California to just 7. A 309-thousand barrel per day loss in refining capacity is huge.”
The California Policy Center says California refineries process just over 1.6 million barrels worth of oil per day.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, California is projected to consume about 1.85 million barrels of crude oil per day.
Two weeks ago we reported that Chevron plans to layoff or relocate about 600 employees from its headquarters in San Ramon out-of-state to Houston, Texas,
and Philipps 66 announced last year it’s Los Angeles refinery will be closing this year in just a few months.
According to representative Fong and several other sources, at one time in the late seventies, somewhere between 40 to 50 refineries were operating in the state of California.
Depending upon who you talk to, that number is now down to about 7 full refineries and 5 smaller, privately owned refineries.
So what do you think?
Is it time for state lawmakers to change policies to bring more oil refineries back to California?
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