The Tioga Gas Mart sits at 9,600 feet on the eastern edge of Yosemite, surrounded by granite and thin air. It is also one of the only fuel stops for miles in Mono County, a stretch of the Sierra Nevada that is home to roughly 13,000 people and zero refineries. In late May 2026, regular unleaded at the Tioga station topped $7 a gallon, according to station-level data on GasBuddy.
That price is extreme even by California standards, but the rest of the state is not far behind. The statewide average has climbed past $6.11, according to AAA’s daily fuel gauge. The national average, by comparison, hovers near $3.70. And two back-to-back refinery closures are about to tighten an already strained market even further.
Two refineries gone in less than a year
Phillips 66 announced in October 2024 that it would stop refining petroleum at its Wilmington and Carson complex in the Los Angeles basin by late 2025. That shutdown has now taken effect. The company has signaled interest in converting the site for renewable fuels production, though no public timeline for that conversion has been released.
Valero followed close behind. Its Benicia refinery, a 170,000-barrel-per-day plant on the Carquinez Strait northeast of San Francisco, was set to cease operations by the end of April 2026, according to the California Energy Commission’s refinery tracking data. Valero has not released a detailed public statement explaining its rationale or outlining plans for displaced workers or local fuel supply.
Together, the two plants represented a substantial share of California’s total crude-processing capacity. The exact percentage depends on whether the baseline includes all state refineries or only those producing CARBOB, the specialized gasoline blend required under California Air Resources Board rules. Either way, federal energy analysts consider the loss significant enough to reshape the regional market.
Why California cannot just import its way out
Most states can absorb a refinery closure by pulling gasoline from neighboring regions through interconnected pipelines. California cannot do that easily. The state mandates CARBOB, a cleaner-burning formulation that meets strict air-quality standards. Only a limited number of refineries worldwide produce it, which effectively walls off California’s gasoline market from the cheaper, more fungible supply flowing through the Gulf Coast and Midwest.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration has warned that West Coast refinery closures increase price volatility, raise dependence on waterborne imports, and create supply risks that ripple through the retail market. Every barrel that Phillips 66 and Valero no longer produce must be sourced from refineries farther away, often overseas, and shipped by tanker at higher cost.
Layered on top of all that is the nation’s highest combined gasoline tax burden. California drivers pay more than 70 cents per gallon in state and federal taxes before wholesale costs and refiner margins even enter the picture. The state’s Division of Petroleum Market Oversight, in its program overview, has identified wholesale costs and margins as the primary drivers of retail spikes; taxes are a steady, predictable layer on top. With two fewer in-state refineries competing for wholesale business, upward pressure on that wholesale layer is the central concern.
Sacramento’s response so far: transparency, not supply
Governor Newsom’s office acknowledged the Valero timeline in a January 2026 statement and pointed to two refinery transparency laws as the state’s primary tools: SB X1-2, signed in 2023, and AB X2-1, signed in 2024. Together, the laws require refineries to report planned maintenance and shutdowns in advance, giving regulators a window to coordinate supply monitoring and track inventories.
“We are watching this very closely,” said a spokesperson for the California Energy Commission in a May 2026 briefing, adding that the agency is “tracking inventory levels weekly and coordinating with the DPMO on wholesale margin data.” The spokesperson declined to provide specifics on import replacement volumes or timelines.
The governor’s statement emphasized preparedness but did not outline specific measures to replace lost refining capacity, secure import contracts, or cap prices. Transparency is a monitoring tool, not a supply tool. Advance notice of a shutdown can help regulators flag potential shortfalls, but it does not by itself build new storage tanks, book tanker berths, or bring new refining capacity online.
Notably absent from any public state document is a comprehensive logistics plan showing how California will replace hundreds of thousands of barrels per day of in-state refining with imports. That swap requires willing sellers abroad who produce CARBOB-compliant fuel, available tanker capacity on the right routes, adequate storage at California ports, and compatible pipeline connections into inland distribution networks reaching places like Mono County.
The gap between monitoring and managing
The California Energy Commission tracks refinery status. The DPMO monitors margins. The governor’s office cites transparency laws. But no single agency has published an assessment quantifying how much additional import capacity is available, how quickly it can be mobilized, or what price premium California consumers should expect for relying more heavily on distant suppliers.
“Nobody has shown us the plan,” said Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, in a June 2026 interview. “We know the refineries are closing. We know imports have to fill the gap. But the logistics of actually doing that at scale, on California’s timeline, with CARBOB specs, have not been publicly mapped out by anyone.”
That gap matters because it is the difference between a temporary squeeze and a prolonged structural shift. If import infrastructure scales up smoothly, prices may stabilize at a new, higher baseline. If it does not, Californians could face the kind of acute supply crunches that have historically sent pump prices spiking during refinery outages and maintenance seasons.
There is also a longer-term question the closures raise: California has the most aggressive electric vehicle mandates in the country, with the Advanced Clean Cars II rule targeting 100% zero-emission new car sales by 2035. But as of early 2026, gasoline-powered vehicles still make up the vast majority of cars on the road. The transition to EVs will eventually reduce gasoline demand, but that timeline is measured in decades, not months. In the near term, millions of drivers remain fully dependent on a fuel supply that just got smaller.
What drivers should actually budget for
No credible public document contains a precise forecast for post-closure gas prices. The EIA’s analysis warns of higher volatility and greater import reliance in qualitative terms but does not publish a point estimate for how much prices will rise. Any specific percentage projection circulating in news coverage is an inference, not a sourced figure.
What is firmly established is the direction. California’s boutique fuel requirements and geographic isolation already make its gasoline more expensive and more vulnerable to supply shocks than the national average. Two major refineries have closed within a narrow window. Federal energy analysts associate exactly this scenario with tighter markets and elevated prices. And no public plan exists to fully offset the lost capacity.
Relief would require either a significant expansion of import infrastructure, a reversal of refinery closures, or a drop in global crude prices large enough to offset the new supply constraints. None of those outcomes is guaranteed, and none appears imminent. For the foreseeable future, the conditions that pushed California gas prices to record levels in recent years are not easing. They are compounding.
Why two closed refineries leave 27 million drivers without a backup plan
Until detailed replacement plans surface, Californians are navigating with incomplete information: clear evidence that in-state refining is shrinking, strong warnings about the risks that follow, and very little concrete data about how those risks will be managed. The most credible federal and state sources all point in the same direction without naming a destination. Anyone offering confident predictions about where prices will land should be asked to show their sources, because right now, the honest answer is that no one has published them.
