Some cali gas stations shutting down after being rationed by refineries.

[powderman]

Read full story at link. POWDERMAN. 
 
The independent gas station owners are typically the first to run out of fuel and shut their pumps when spot prices surge because they often lack long-term contracts to buy from fuel suppliers at set prices, McKeeman said.

Jim Li said yesterday that he may stop selling gasoline at his independent station, Best Auto Care, in San Francisco. He’s charging $4.59 a gallon for the fuel, “and I’m still losing money,” he said.

Wholesale prices are “going up so quick that there’s not even any margin to make any money at all,” he said by telephone.

California-grade, or CARB, diesel in Los Angeles climbed 0.5 cent to 16.5 cents a gallon above heating oil futures on the Nymex. The fuel in San Francisco was unchanged at a premium of 17 cents a gallon versus futures.

Jet fuel in Los Angeles increased 0.37 cent to a premium of 11.25 cents a gallon against futures, the highest since Sept. 19.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...ot-prices.html

[Conan The Librarian]

The state is now trying to make the oil companies keep the prices down. That ought to work real well. (sarcastic). I imagine that the effect will either be a natural end to the supply bottleneck as the down refinery comes back online, or a further reduction supply because the companies need to make money on the products they sell. Shades of Nixon-era price controls.