CA Oil Refiners Profit Margins Tick Up In February As They Exploit Refinery Outage To Make More Profits, Said Consumer Watchdog

Posted on May 13th, 2025 | Filed under Press Releases

SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — New data posted by the California Energy Commission shows oil refiners making an average 80 cents per gallon in gross refining margins as of February, when a fire at a PBF refinery in Northern California stopped gasoline production at the facility. The growing gap between US and California gasoline prices over the last two months suggests the margins are even greater for refiners in March and April.

“The Northern California outage created a profit taking opportunity for oil refiners and they are reporting to shareholders that the planned closure of two refineries in the next year will yield greater profits due to reduced supplies,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. “California needs to speed the plow on getting minimum inventory and resupply regulations in place. Refiners are reporting to their shareholders a pull back on California refinery regulation that could cause consumers much pain at the pump this summer and beyond. Governor Newsom needs to make good on his commitments for oil refiner accountability and put the regulations implementing his special session reforms in place.”

The Energy Commission has yet to calendar the minimum supply regulations despite previously saying they would be in place by summer.

The refinery margin data was recently updated by the California Energy Commission (CEC) pursuant to SB 1322 (Allen), which required monthly reporting of refining margins with approximately a two month lag, but the CEC had fallen behind on timely posting.

The Energy Commission data shows that last year oil refiners made an average margin of 70 cents per gallon. In 2023, the year the legislature enacted Governor Newsom’s session oil refiner accountability reforms, the gross margin averaged $1.01 per gallon.

“California oil refiners are making healthy profit margins by any historical measure,” said Court. “The operational cost of running a California refinery, as reported to the Securities Exchange Commission, is approximately 20 centers per gallon, so a gross refinery margin of 80 cents means a refinery is taking home about 60 cents on every gallon of gasoline that is refined. A gross refining margin measures the difference between the wholesale price of gasoline and the cost of crude oil that made the gasoline.”

In recent shareholder calls refiners were optimistic about the California refining market.

Chevron: “Q: With the recently announced competitor closures of refineries. How are you thinking about your position there? Mike Wirth, Chairman and CEO, Chevron Corporation: Yeah, we’ve got a strong position. We’ve got two refineries that have good scale, good complexity. We’ve got strong integrated value chains with a strong brand in the marketplace”

PBF: “Matt Lucey, President and CEO, PBF Energy: I actually think there’s been recognition in the state, certainly in the last couple months, how critical our products are for the well-being of the people within the state. And indeed, not only how important they are, but indeed the recognition that they’re gonna be in demand for many decades to come. And if you go and look at the state’s numbers…the announced closures, by next year, we see the market short 250,000 barrels a day of gasoline or over 250,000 barrels a day of gasoline, which will force the market to attract higher cost imports….I have been more than pleased and encouraged by the recent conversations we’ve had. Words like we need to work collaboratively, which is somewhat unthinkable not too long ago…. So, I’ve been encouraged by the state…we have a team embedded there….I’ve had a number of conversations with them. And so, you know, at the moment, I believe our refineries are well positioned to not only deliver the low-cost products that the state is desperately gonna need going forward, but just to provide strong returns and results for our shareholders.”

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