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.
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.
> [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...
Per the article, the type of fuel needed by California standards is produced at refineries in India, South Korea and Washington.
How much below the peak is current sales?
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.
Whatever they're doing seems to be working nicely.
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?
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.
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.
