San Antonio-Based Valero Wants Out of California -- The Moat Gets Wider

Link here to LA Times.

Meanwhile, another big player in the California refinery industry may be looking for buyers and hoping to leave the state.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp. was looking for buyers for at least two of the refineries it operates in California.

Valero has a 132,000 barrel a day refinery in Benicia, Calif. that it acquired in 2000. It also owns a 78,000 barrel a day refinery in Wlimington (sic). Both of those facilities produce gasoline and diesel for the California market.

Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst for Oppenheimer and Co., said that Valero is looking for buyers because of a looming regulatory requirement in California that will require refinery emissions to match 1990 levels by 2020.

"California has been and will continue to be a difficult state to do business in" because of such regulatory hurdles, said Gheit, but he added that Valero will probably be able to find a buyer.

The moat surrounding California is getting wider. The lack of adequate refining in California is part of the reason Californians are paying record -- yes, record -- prices of gasoline on October 22, 2012, when most of the rest of the nation is seeing prices falling (at least those were some of the recent headlines if I recall correctly).

Wlimington is an alternate spelling for Wilmington, I assume.