Why Gas Prices Are Spiking

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/california-gas-prices-spiking.html

Version 0 of 1.

Good morning.

(Here’s the sign-up, if you don’t already get California Today by email.)

Gas is never cheap in California.

But if you’ve filled up your tank in recent days, you may have found yourself wincing more than usual.

That’s because, for the first time since July 2015, the average price for a gallon of gas in the Golden State pushed past $4, Dan McTeague, a senior petroleum analyst with the site GasBuddy, told me on Monday afternoon.

“That’s a psychological benchmark for a lot of people,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

So what’s causing the price spike?

You may already know that the primary reason gas tends to be more expensive in California is the state’s stringent gasoline standards, which require a cleaner fuel blend that only a few refineries outside the state can produce.

So when work is stopped at any of the 10 major refineries within California, it can make a significant dent in the supply of gas, which causes prices to rise.

And that, Mr. McTeague said, is exactly what’s been happening.

According to a report by the Oil Price Information Service, six of those 10 major refineries have had work disruptions — like a fire at a Phillips 66 refinery in Carson on March 15 — or planned maintenance that has taken them offline.

Mr. McTeague said that those, coupled with a problem at an Air Products hydrogen plant, added up to an abnormal run.

“You might have one, you might have two,” he said of unplanned disruptions. “You don’t have five or six.”

Plus, he said, the timing is just bad: Refineries are switching to summer gas blend production, which can take facilities temporarily offline.

We’re heading toward some big travel weekends. Will things get better?

Mr. McTeague said prices were down over the last couple of days. But he cautioned that “there’s still momentum in the price” and that information lags by about a week.

He predicted the average price per gallon would “crest” at about $4.15 soon, before dropping back to the $3.80 range.

But Mr. McTeague noted that big driving weekends — Easter and Memorial Day — are coming up. And drivers may be taking to the roads while supplies are still diminished.

Either way, he said, “I think we’re looking at a volatile summer.”

On Monday, the winners and finalists for the 2019 Pulitzer Prizes were announced. The awards honor the year’s best journalism, fiction, poetry and music. California was home to many of this year’s honorees. Here’s some of their work:

• The Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. In an explosive series of stories, the journalists Harriet Ryan, Matt Hamilton and Paul Pringle revealed that U.S.C. had allowed a campus gynecologist to continue practicing after he had been repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct by students. The investigation had wide-ranging impacts and roiled the university. [The Los Angeles Times]

• The staff of The Chico Enterprise-Record, in collaboration with the Bay Area News Group, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting. The newspaper covered the Camp Fire, the state’s deadliest blaze, on the ground in Paradise, a community that was nearly wiped off the map. [The Enterprise-Record]

• And John Locher, Noah Berger and Ringo Chiu, who are Associated Press photojournalists, were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. They were recognized for their haunting images of the wildfires that tore across the state last year. [The Associated Press]

• Darrin Bell, a Los Angeles native, won in editorial cartooning for beautiful and daring editorial cartoons that took on issues affecting disenfranchised communities.[The Pulitzer Prizes]

• Ellen Reid’s work of opera-theater, “p r i s m,” won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for music. The piece premiered at L.A. Opera’s Off Grand and explores life after trauma. [The Pulitzer Prizes]

(We often link to sites that limit access for nonsubscribers. We appreciate your reading Times stories, but we’d also encourage you to support local news if you can.)

• The day after Representative Eric Swalwell announced he was running for president, he insisted that “we don’t have time for vanity things.” But there’s no doubt he’s a long-shot candidate. So why run? There’s not much downside. [The New York Times]

• So far in the sprawling college admissions fraud case, students haven’t been prosecuted. But that could change. A lawyer involved in the case said that some of the children of parents who have been charged got so-called target letters, which notify them that they may be the subject of a criminal probe. In another development in the case, Lori Loughlin pleaded not guilty. [The New York Times]

• There are 15 men named John in the House of Representatives. And yet, two women named Katie — Representatives Katie Porter and Katie Hill, both freshmen from Southern California — are the ones who keep getting confused for each other. “It’s constant,” Ms. Porter said. [The Los Angeles Times]

• How would Palm Springs join Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley in having some of the worst air in the nation? “To paraphrase Bob Dylan, the answer is blowing in the wind.” [The Desert Sun]

• Can a universal basic income actually work? Stockton is testing it out — but even that process is fraught and difficult. Still, if it goes well, the city could become a model. [The Los Angeles Times]

• After a disastrous season for the Lakers, Luke Walton took a job as head coach of the Sacramento Kings. Now, the team is hoping his relationship with Vlade Divac, the general manager, will be fruitful. [The Sacramento Bee]

• A columnist asks if sideshows, or illegal street shows where drivers burn the rubber off the tires of high-performance cars by doing doughnuts and figure-eights, can go the way of Nascar. Which is to say: Should the East Bay tradition be made legal and hosted in safe, designated venues? [KQED]

Stephen Curry may be supernaturally good at basketball. But he is a normal mortal in at least one regard and that is this: The dude really, really loves popcorn.

It’s not a particularly healthy pregame snack, and no one looks cool while they’re eating it — not even Curry, as the fantastic photos and video in this piece by my colleague Marc Stein attest.

Still, Curry’s devotion is real and, apparently, widely known enough to inspire staff members at arenas across the nation to prepare for his arrival.

Curry even went as far as to rank all 29 of their popcorn offerings using a five-category matrix. Which arena came out on top? American Airlines Center, home of the Dallas Mavericks, where the popcorn scored a perfect 5 in freshness, saltiness, butter and presentation. It earned only a 4 in crunchiness, though.

California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.

Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, went to school at U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.