California Receives Final Middle East Oil Shipment as Gas Prices Hit $6.16

A supertanker called the New Corolla docked in Long Beach recently, delivering what market intelligence firms Vortexa and Kpler confirm is California’s last incoming shipment of Middle Eastern oil. Another tanker carrying Middle Eastern crude will not dock in California until months after the Strait of Hormuz reopens, according to those firms. For a state that already pays the highest fuel prices in the nation, the arrival of that final tanker is not a relief. It is a deadline. Gasoline in California averaged $6.16 a gallon on Friday, about $1.61 above the national average. Diesel sat at $7.48, roughly $1.82 above the US average.

The New Corolla departed Basra a few days before the US and Israel first attacked Iran, passing through the Strait of Hormuz on February 28. It carried approximately 2 million barrels of crude oil across the Indian and Pacific oceans over a six-week journey. It unloaded part of its cargo last month and was discharging the remainder at a berth in Long Beach on Friday. Once that process is complete, no additional Middle Eastern crude shipments are scheduled to arrive. Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy, said it will take “a month or two for flows to start resuming” after the strait reopens, and that California will then face the additional challenge of catching up on lost supply.

The energy situation in California is being shaped by decades of structural decisions that make this moment particularly difficult to absorb. US drillers have largely exited the state and dozens of refineries have closed since the mid-1980s, forcing California to import 75% of the oil it consumes. Nearly one-third of that imported oil comes from the Middle East, making California more dependent on crude shipments from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates than any other US state. That structural vulnerability, built over decades, is why the Strait of Hormuz closure hits California harder than it hits the rest of the country.

What Is Happening to California’s Fuel Supply Right Now

California’s stockpiles of refined products including jet fuel and diesel are under increasing strain. Major Asian fuel suppliers, including South Korea, have slowed exports to California in order to protect their own energy supplies. According to Vortexa data, only about 35,000 barrels per day of refined products are scheduled to arrive from South Korea in May, down sharply from 100,000 barrels per day in April. That reduction compounds the loss of Middle Eastern crude and leaves California with fewer alternative sources to draw from as its domestic supply situation deteriorates.

Two of California’s major refineries have also closed in the past six months, cutting off nearly one-fifth of the state’s fuel-making capacity. That loss of refining infrastructure means that even if crude oil were arriving in sufficient quantities, the state has less capacity to process it into usable fuel than it did a year ago. Analysts note that the Strait of Hormuz closure has already withheld at least 1 billion barrels from the global market. Even if the strait reopens soon, the disruption that has already occurred will take time to work through the supply chain before California sees meaningful relief at the pump.

California is receiving some limited help from the Gulf Coast. In mid-March, the Trump administration issued a 60-day waiver of the Jones Act, a 1920 law signed by President Woodrow Wilson that prohibits foreign vessels from carrying goods between American ports. The waiver allows companies to ship oil and fuel to California on larger foreign tankers, improving the economics of trade flows that are typically unprofitable. Since mid-March, US oil companies including refiner Marathon Petroleum have used approximately a dozen foreign tankers to send roughly 2 million barrels of gasoline, gasoline blending components, jet fuel, and biodiesel through the Panama Canal to California. California typically consumes more than 1 million barrels per day of refined products, making 2 million barrels across several weeks a partial measure at best.

The Policy Disputes Behind California’s Vulnerability and Who Is Saying What

California’s exposure to the current crisis is not only the result of the Strait of Hormuz closure. It reflects a longer set of policy decisions that left the state structurally dependent on imported crude with limited domestic alternatives. Without a major pipeline network connecting it to oil-producing states like Texas and New Mexico, California cannot easily access the domestic oil boom in the American interior. Its reliance on foreign crude, combined with the closure of refineries and the departure of US drillers, means the state had fewer buffers available when the disruption arrived.

Chevron CEO Mike Wirth addressed the situation directly during an earnings call earlier this month, saying the company is “doing everything we can to meet our supply obligations” in California. He added: “It does point out the vulnerabilities that have been created in California as a result of decades of poor energy policy.” Chevron, which was a California company for more than a century before moving its headquarters to Houston two years ago, has long argued that the state’s higher taxes and environmental regulations prompted oil companies to relocate to other states, contributing to the supply constraints now being felt. Chevron has taken some crude from Sable Offshore’s restarted pipeline into its El Segundo refinery as part of the current response.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has pointed in a different direction. In a post on X in March, Newsom said: “No amount of spin from Trump and his lackeys can cover up the fact that Americans shelled out an extra $1.5 BILLION for gas this past week because of his disastrous war with Iran.” The Trump administration used the Defense Production Act to allow oil producer Sable Offshore to restart an offshore pipeline that California regulators had kept closed following a 2015 oil spill. That pipeline is now pumping 50,000 barrels per day of crude into the state. The policy dispute between state and federal officials over who bears responsibility for California’s energy vulnerability predates the current crisis and is unlikely to be resolved by it.

What Comes Next for California Drivers and How Long the Pain Could Last

The timeline for relief depends heavily on when the Strait of Hormuz reopens and how quickly shipping flows resume afterward. De Haan of GasBuddy estimated a one-to-two month lag between the strait reopening and the resumption of oil flows to California, after which the state would still need time to replenish depleted stockpiles. Rohit Rathod, an analyst at Vortexa, was more direct about the immediate picture: “There’s nothing else en route” from the Middle East. For California drivers, that means the supply situation is likely to remain constrained for the foreseeable future, with prices reflecting that scarcity.

The Jones Act waiver and the Sable pipeline restart are providing some relief, but both are limited in scale relative to California’s daily consumption needs. Ross Allen, a Chevron spokesman, acknowledged that “vessel availability and location have limited the relief the Jones Act waiver has been able to provide so far.” Two million barrels of refined products delivered over several weeks via Gulf Coast tankers represents a meaningful contribution but does not come close to replacing the volume California would normally receive from Middle Eastern crude shipments. The state’s refinery closures further constrain its ability to convert whatever crude does arrive into usable fuel.

California’s situation is an extreme version of a vulnerability that exists across the United States in different forms. States that depend heavily on specific import routes, lack pipeline access to domestic production, or have reduced domestic refining capacity are more exposed when global supply chains are disrupted. For the approximately 40 million people living in California, the practical consequence right now is gasoline at $6.16 a gallon with no immediate prospect of significant relief. The final Middle Eastern tanker has docked. The next one is not scheduled. And the catching up, as De Haan put it, has not yet begun.