It looks like the honeymoon is over between California refineries and the division within the California Energy Commission that was recently created to monitor the industry. Stopping just short of calling out refiners for price gouging, the head of the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight says the run-up in gasoline prices customers have experienced since the start of this year is connected to increases in industry profit margins.
As for refinery margins in 2022 and 2023, Slagle said those numbers do not take into account the operations needed to convert crude oil into petroleum products such as gasoline. 'You're comparing one part of the process — crude oil — and ignoring the entire middle part,' Slagle said. 'It ignores the stations, the distributors and the cost of refining. And the cost of refining changes significantly depending on what time of year it and other things.