Okay, Ben, yeah, we'll

try not to go through this too fast, but California put itself in a bad position with regard to supply.

Starting in 2023, two of its oil refiners went on renewable diesel.

What that means is they went off of crude oil refining, 260,000 barrels a day.

That means no gasoline, no jet fuel.

So in 2023, the state began its deficit on production of gasoline and jet fuel.

Um, Then with California's regulations, different things affected other refineries.

So Mike, do you have any, anything to add on a potential like rationing plan?

So what's going on right now?

Well, what's going on right now? As you know, California is 40% dependent on its fuel imports.

Where we used to be energy dominant and making our own fuel, we've lost two refineries in 2023, converted to renewable diesel, which means 350,000 barrels of their crude oil processing went offline.

And what that means in simple layman terms is no gasoline from those refineries and no jet fuel.

So 2023, we started to import.

Then the state signed a couple bills into law, Wilmington and Phillips 66 of Wilmington and Valero and Bidisha.

Those two refineries shut down October last year, and then Valero pulled the plug on January 31st.

not make sense to me.

Oh my gosh.

So, um, yeah, we're just, uh, we're, we're at, we're at the...

You know, it's, it's one of the things we, the three of us had figured out a long time ago is, you know, you get the, you get, like, the refinery shut down.

Um, you end up in that situation where you're not produc- um, you're not producing your own, and then you end up in a situation where something happens, you know.

It could've been, like, a fire at the Port of LA.

Uh, refine- right now if a refinery shuts down, God help us.

I mean, [laughs] we're, we're, we're, we're...

Wow

Yeah,

and they kept talking and you know, they just continue to important that's the we had concerns the three of us me and the professor and Stan Ellis the assemblyman that we were reaching the point of the docks our ports ability to offload these tankers that are coming from overseas which is a big vulnerability and risk in itself and I think what we're seeing now is with Valero dropping off at four point three to four point five million gallons a day of production is gone and I think we're starting to see that where the supply is really starting to get constrained.

And it's a simple supply and demand.

You know, normally we have about 14 days of supply.

You get down to about 12 days of supply on hand of gasoline and the price will start to go through the roof.

And I think that's what we're seeing up here in Northern California.

And probably because of the specific fact that Benicia is in Northern California, we've seen the prices in a lot of areas around here going up even higher.

Tell me about this.

Just go through the whole timeline.

Well, we need to step back real quick back to 2023 and why Valero is such a major impact.

Back in 2023, the Rodeo and Marathon refineries – They were converted onto renewable diesel, so they shut down.

They stopped processing crude oil.

Why that matters is, at that point, they are no longer making gasoline, jet fuel, or propane.

So back in 2023, we started importing around 18% to 20% of our fuel from Singapore, South Korea, and India.

Then Phillips 66 went down, as you know, in October, and That was another 9 to 10% of our fuel production.

Newsom was warned about this for years.