WATCH: Legislator warns gas could reach $8 to $10 a gallon

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(The Center Square) – California needs to produce more oil to keep gas prices from hitting $8 to $10 a gallon, a Republican assemblymember said during a virtual news conference Monday.

Ten years ago, California produced 468,000 barrels of crude oil a day throughout the state, said Assemblymember Stan Ellis, R-Bakersfield. His city is in Kern County, known for its oil fields and refineries.

“We’re down to 168,000 barrels today,” Ellis, a rancher and businessman who has worked in oil production, told reporters from The Center Square and other media.

The state is making up the difference by getting oil from third-world countries with poor human rights records, Ellis said during the conference, which also included industry expert Ted Cordova.

Ellis, a member of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, added that the oil is coming on ships that burn a fuel oil “loaded with polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons.

“And as these ships come in, you’ll notice they billow out black smoke,” Ellis said.

He warned that dependency on other countries for oil could prove catastrophic if wars or disasters such as tsunamis strike.

“We do not have a pipeline to bring our crude and our products from Texas,” Ellis said. “We are bringing products from other countries into our ports, and it’s a matter of national security.”

The answer isn’t new refineries or new pipelines, but keeping existing refineries and pipelines open with a good supply of domestic oil, Ellis said.

The Philipps 66 refinery is closing in October, and the Valero refinery is set to close in April 2026. 

The closure of those refineries in California could lead prices to rise to $8.44 a gallon by the end of 2026, according to a study from University of Southern California professor Michael A. Mische.

Ellis cited the closures of refineries such as Philipps 66 and Valero as he answered The Center Square's question on how gas could reach $8 to $10 a gallon.

The costs of foreign oil being shipped at $5 to $8 a barrel, along with expenses such as transportation and loading costs, will be passed on to the consumers, he said.

Gas prices in California have remained about the same since the updated Low Carbon Fuel Standard went into effect July 1, despite the expectations of groups such as the California Air Resources Board and the University of Pennsylvania Kleiman Center for Energy Policy.

Still, California consistently has had the highest gas prices in the U.S. On Monday, the average was $4.624 a gallon, more than the national average of $3.199, according to AAA. 

The California price is up from $4.496 in August, but is down from $4.703 around this time in 2024.