New Media
California’s Gasoline Price Gouging Law Working To Hold Down Oil Refiner Profits and Gas Prices Two Years After Passage, Adds Protections For Polluter Pays Laws
“Oil companies with refineries in California have made extraordinary profits over the last 10 years,” said Robert McCullough. “Profits of the five major companies owning refineries in California over the past decade totals $246.7 billion. Allowing the recapture of some of these profits to meet the costs of global warming partially caused by these companies is appropriate.”
Robbins Geller Escapes Sanctions In Gas Price-Fixing Suit
U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta said that despite substantial media and legal scrutiny regarding Alon’s 2012 decision to shut down a refinery in Bakersfield, California, possibly in connection to the rise in gas prices, the company failed to sufficiently refute the allegations against it, adding that media reports, expert analysis and market data exist to help back the claims against it, including findings by energy expert Robert McCullough of McCullough Research.
Edison’s Power Lines Were Under Strain 14 Hours Before Eaton Fire
New York Times – Ivan Penn and Blacki Migliozzi
“I think we have a great picture of what happened,” said Robert McCullough, principal of McCullough Research in Portland, Ore., which has been reviewing data and information about Edison, including from Whisker Labs, at The New York Times’s request. “Too many people didn’t respond quickly enough,” he added.
New Articles
Missing tariff on the missing imports
The anomalous energy sources in s. 8(a) does not include solar and wind which have no fuel. In thecase of “geothermal heat” and “kinetic movement of flowing water,” this is a strange construction ofwords that attempts to define the “fuel” for geothermal and hydroelectricity. However, they are notcommodities since they are not traded, transportable, and relatively difficult to measure.
Press coverage has taken a number of approaches to handling the odd terminology. The mostcommon has been to simply assume that the terms are simply meaningless and substitute logicalalternatives. This is defensible given the president’s lack of background in energy, but falls afoul ofthe standards of legal interpretation which argue against an interpretation that makes some of thetext irrelevant.
Whither Hydro-Québec?
High above René Lévesque Boulevard in Montreal looms the redoubt of Hydro-Québec — long one of the most secretive utilities in North America. While resource plans at other utilities in Canada and the U.S. can run to thousands of pages — including detailed studies of markets, technologies, loads and transmission — Hydro-Québec’s periodic Strategic Plans have slowly but surely shrunk to a minimalist report announcing their existence, their profound popularity and their contribution to the Quebec economy.
In March, the tiniest glimmer of information was released from la
forteresse d’Hydro-Québec.
Increasing U.S. Oil Production During Ukraine Invasion
Successful oil sanctions against Russia will cause less harm to the world economy if U.S. oil production ramps up. Unfortunately, the U.S. response to high oil prices has been slow and cautious. To meet needs in Europe, the U.S. may need to consider financing support for independent wildcatters in mid-continental oil fields to accelerate U.S. oil production.
New Reports
Deconstructing Trump’s Energy Tariff
On February 1, 2025, the president issued an executive order imposing tariffs on Cana-dian energy. The actual tariff language was contained in a previous executive order enti-tled “Declaring A National Energy Emergency.”[…]
The anomalous energy sources in Section 8(a) do not include solar and wind which have no fuel. In the case of “geothermal heat” and “kinetic movement of flowing water”, this is a strange construction of words that attempts to define the “fuel” for geothermal and hydroelectricity. However, they are not commodities since they are not traded, trans-portable, and relatively difficult to measure.
Comments on SB X1-2 Workshop on Maximum Gross Gasoline Refining Margin and Penalty
Restrictions to the maximum margin changes the incentives for any number of market abuses ranging from exaggerated public announcements to wash trades designed to raise the OPIS index. The management of the refineries will exercise more supervision over their California operations if they face the incentive to do so. Absent such incentives, the unexplained market events experienced over the past decade will continue.
West Coast Gasoline Price Excursions in September 2022
In September 2022, West Coast consumers saw the second highest gasoline prices in history even while global oil prices were falling.
Data from the federal Energy Information Administration and the California Energy Commission indicate that production did not decrease during the period of the high prices.
McCullough Research concludes that West Coast refineries’ explanations that unforeseen shortages cause gasoline price increases are questionable, considering that the usual practice is to build inventory to cover sales during operational shutdowns. The attached memo finds little evidence that a supply shortage caused the price spike.
Market surveillance and transparency assure efficient markets, yet the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission do not provide routine surveillance, and until the nation’s gasoline and oil markets are subject to the same procedures that are routine for all other energy markets, the West Coast is vulnerable to market manipulation.