California has lost refining capacity it cannot easily replace. This page tracks the price live from official EIA data, and publishes our forecast for next week alongside it.
Two California refineries have shut down: Phillips 66 Wilmington closed late 2025 (139k barrels per day), and Valero Benicia stopped refining April 2026 (170k barrels per day, about 9% of state capacity). Together that is roughly 17.5% of the state's refining capacity, per industry reporting. This is capacity that is gone, not paused.
California cannot simply import the shortfall. State rules require a cleaner gasoline blend that few refineries outside California produce, so replacement supply has to travel further and costs more to bring in. That is why a closure here moves prices more than the same closure would elsewhere.
Economists at UC Davis project a rise of up to $1.21 per gallon by August 2026, if no further significant changes happen in the market. That projection is theirs, not ours. It describes a year, and it is conditional. We forecast one week at a time, and we publish how often we get it right.
Price data: EIA weekly California regular retail. Refinery and projection figures are cited from their publishers and are not FillWindow estimates. Driver fuel costs: Beem, with underlying data from Gridwise 2026 Gas Report.
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