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Comment by rconti | Hacker News Reader

I'm a bit perplexed on this one-- Yes, we refine our own blend of gasoline, but it's based on market oil -- nothing about the war we started with Iran impacts our domestic refining capability.

Also, oil takes longer to get from Iran to the west coast than to the east coast. Shouldn't the east coast be the first to notice decreased shipments, because the west coast essentially has a stock still in transit for longer?

EDIT: Nevermind, now I see that 25% of CA gas is refined overseas.

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CA’s requirement that it gets its own blend of gas is combined with how its openly hostile towards its ever decreasing refineries and that it is impossible for a new refinery to ever open makes it’s supplies absurdly limited

Everyone loves gas and hates refineries. It's a tough choice.

People in LA need to breathe during the summer time. So yes we demand a blend that protects our residents. And the refiners are choosing to close refineries. They are not being compelled.

Yeah, I remember flying into LAX in the late 80s and early 90s. Smog so thick it looked like a physical obstacle.

Whatever they're doing seems to be working nicely.

Car emissions are far lower now. I lived in CA when the air was grey in July.

That ended a long time ago. A modern Honda generates something like 1% as much pollution as a car from the eighties.

They are being strangled, it’s their choice to tap out is how I would put it.

The improvement in air quality is due to the clean air act, catalytic converters, and the shuttering of industry, the gas blend plays a minor part. Even then, with gas so much higher it will materially make peoples lives worse, at some point society would be better off getting rid of the blend.

It's bonkers that some of the most expensive gas you'll ever buy is in SF, and Martinez is right there. You could bike there, if they allowed bikes on the bridge.

I paid the equivalent of $12.50 a gallon for diesel at the peak price a month or so ago.

California learned that lesson the hard way. Have you been in the city during a bad smog day?

> CA’s requirement that it gets its own blend of gas is combined with how its openly hostile towards its ever decreasing refineries and that it is impossible for a new refinery to ever open makes it’s supplies absurdly limited

A big one is a lack of pipelines.

As I understand it, California sits on so much oil, nobody has built a pipeline.

Building an energy pipeline in California is like bringing sand to the beach. The energy is already there.

There are plenty of crude oil and refined product pipelines in California.

For example crude oil is produced mid state in the San Joaquin valley and pumped by pipeline to the Bay Area and LA refineries.

Refined product from LA is delivered by pipeline from LA refineries as far east as Phoenix and up to Las Vegas.

Building new pipelines in California though is…challenging.

There has been no major refineries opened in the US since 1977. There have been a handful of small refineries in the 2010s and early 2020s in California, North Dakota, and Texas.

How do you know California's lack of new refineries is due to California hostility rather than being due to whatever caused the same lack in every other state?

Weirdly California doesn't get all of its gas from domestic refining.

https://timesofsandiego.com/state-region/2026/04/23/prices-c...

"California’s top foreign refinery supplier of gasoline and blendstocks this decade is Reliance Industries Ltd.’s Jamnagar refinery complex in western India. "

"More than 9 million barrels arrived via this loophole in 2025"

Now, that's a tiny fraction of the 320M barrels of gas used in CA annually, but anything that affects global oil shipments will be felt in California.

It's beyond belief how much California imports...

> [California] imports about 60% of its crude from overseas--up from 5% in the mid-1980s- about a third of which comes from the Middle East. About 15% of the state's refined fuels are also imported, much of which depends on Middle East crude.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/gavin-newsom-california-offshore...

2 refineries in California were closed over the last 2 years leading to a 17% reduction in total refining capacity.

Per the article, the type of fuel needed by California standards is produced at refineries in India, South Korea and Washington.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65704

... because demand is down. California hit peak gas sales 20 years ago and reaching zero motor fuel sales is foreseeable.

Reaching zero motor fuel sales is foreseeable? By when do you foresee it?

How much below the peak is current sales?

15% in absolute terms, 22% in per capita terms. And it is state policy to allow no more additional ICE cars in less than ten years, no net emissions in less than 20 years. Investing in a refinery today would obviously be folly.

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