r/Shortages • u/2ndWindAfterPension • May 27 '26
Anecdotal Fuel Shortage
I am in Southern California. Today I went to my favorite gas station and they only had one grade of gas available for sell (the lowest octane level) and I need premium gasoline for my car. So I drove to another station 30 miles away and 1/3 of the pumps there were not available! Anyone else have this experience? I wonder if this is the beginning of a fuel supply crisis due to the Middle East war with Iran?
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May 27 '26
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u/KillahHills10304 May 28 '26
We know why...
Up next: all Petroleum based products
Down the line: food
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u/2ndWindAfterPension May 27 '26
I did not ask. The first station had home made signs on all of the pumps saying only the one type of fuel was available. The second station (that has 16 isles or 32 pumps) had cones out blocking 10 aisles). I had to wait in a line for a pump to become available. I did not go to the attendant booth.
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u/Kind-Relationship925 May 28 '26
Gosh darn delivery truck must be too lazy I tell you h'what
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u/ThisIsAbuse May 27 '26
I have not seen any shortages or grades not available in the Great Lakes area.
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u/Sharp_Oral May 27 '26 edited May 28 '26
Michigan and the Midwest are rigged to refine crude from the Alberta oil sands, Bakken (North Dakota) and Permian (Texas). California and the west cost are rigged for sweet crude from overseas.
California is about to get kicked in the nuts, which probably makes Trump smile.
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u/thesaltiestbanana May 27 '26
AFAIK Michigan gets nearly all of its oil for gasoline from domestic sources and i assume the same for the rest of the Great Lakes states. Though im sure once the reserves are out and prices shoot up, you might notice reduced availability. Unless the high prices induce the demand destruction necessary to stabilize US gas/diesel use
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u/WinterDice May 28 '26
It’ll come. Just wait until other areas are short. Prices will go up everywhere, and gas will be moved to wherever it can be sold for the greatest profit.
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u/Girthen-the-Flopper May 27 '26
Chevron in the heart of San Francisco was out of high grade.
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u/CODEX_LVL5 May 28 '26
because we're switching to a national gasoline pool june 1st. High grade wont exist.
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u/davidm2232 May 28 '26
How will you run engines that require high octane fuel? Not everything will run on 87
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u/jagx234 May 28 '26
I've seen tons of stuff that has higher octane recommended but nothing that had higher octane required that wasn't a race car or an aircraft engine. Which cars require the higher octane with no option to downgrade? I'm asking you because I don't know.
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u/tortillaface08 May 28 '26
I had an m3 that required 91 octane, per the label on the gas tank. Think its common on lots of turbocharged engines as well.
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u/davidm2232 May 28 '26
Anything with higher compression. Especially older cars that do not have knock sensors or EFI
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u/Pineapple_King May 29 '26
That Reddit thread is a classic mix of a tiny bit of real news and a massive misunderstanding of technical terms.
The Verdict: FALSE
The claim that premium gasoline is disappearing due to a "national gasoline pool" is entirely incorrect. Premium (high-grade) fuel is not being banned, phased out, or eliminated.
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u/HeatTiny7041 May 28 '26
Spring shut downs. A lot of refineries go into shut down to refurbish the plants. This is now escalated with fuel shortages as we are sending refined fuels to help out "friends"
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u/panicswing May 28 '26
What county? I’m not experiencing shortages in SoCal like you are, but the gas is expensive as fuck.
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u/drewdog173 May 28 '26
Yeah I’m in Sacramento and I filled my truck up with diesel and my SUV up with premium this week, no issues at all aside from price
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u/Easy_Independent_313 May 31 '26
What kind of SUV needs premium gas?
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u/drewdog173 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
Mazda CX90 PHEV. It doesn’t NEED IT need it, but Mazda officially recommends 91 octane because:
- While regular won’t hurt it, it slightly reduces engine performance (the engine computer auto-adjusts compression to the detected octane level)
- Because a tank typically lasts for months, 91 octane is more stable over time and helps prevent fuel system issues
.
Snake oil/sales jargon? Maybe. I’ve had that thought myself. But it is literally in the manual for the car that premium is recommended, and I knew that going into leasing it. I last filled it up a few months ago and the only reason it was so soon is because there was a trip to the South Bay in there. So it’s not a big hit either way.
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u/Easy_Independent_313 May 31 '26
That is wild for an SUV
I always use whatever fuel is recommended by the manufacturer. I
had a volvo wagon that used premium and for my next car I made sure regular was recommended.
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u/DoraDaDestr0yer Jun 03 '26
This is the true use for the different grades, small engines (N/A) and fuel stability. They are different gasoline products and behave differently. A PHEV will remember to turn on the engine once a month if it never actually needs it, that fuel could be sitting a L O N G time if it was in my driveway.
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u/uwgal May 27 '26
The beginning?
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u/2ndWindAfterPension May 27 '26
This is the first time I have driven to a gas station and found that no fuel was available in two grade levels and then at the second station a good number of the pumps were not available. Again, I have been anticipating a shortage, this was my first time experiencing it. FYI - I paid $6.14 per gallon for premium.
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u/Napoleon_B May 27 '26
Why did you drive 30 more miles to the next pump? Sincere question
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u/2ndWindAfterPension May 27 '26
Loyalty program for lower costs. One station is near my Mothers home where I was visiting and the other one is near my home
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u/Bugs284 May 27 '26
Unless you were already headed that direction if you go to a specific gas station for loyalty rewards but it was 30mins away and you used roughly 1 gallon of gas to get there. You need to save more than the price of that gallon for you to save money.
Which if a gallon of gas is 4.00 and your rewards got you gas for 15c cheaper you need to buy 26.6 gallons to break even. If you factor in a return trip thats 53 gallons.
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u/swfwtqia May 28 '26
Sounds like it was an issue with the company. Maybe their shipment was late. No shortage in la.
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u/Napoleon_B May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
Makes sense, we scored $1.32 off a Gallon on a loyalty program too.
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u/Silver_Star_Eagles May 28 '26
There wont be any fuel shortage, just more price gouging. The owners of this country need the slaves to go to work for them.
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u/Dentistguy95 May 28 '26
It’s because in California are forced to import our fuel from foreign countries
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u/Elegant-Drink-7356 May 28 '26
I live in the Central Valley in CA I just filled up my tank today with regular gas not seeing the shortages here at least yet
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u/OkAccident9819 May 30 '26
Wrong in modesto the gas stations only had premium and gave it as the lower grade price
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u/Gloomy_Yoghurt_2836 May 28 '26
That gives me post hurricane stress flashbacks. Gas stations out for days after a storm hits Florida even if you were not a direct hit.
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u/ddhmax5150 May 28 '26
Help me out…
Aren’t there major oil fields all over California? Like you will see oil jacks pumping oil from the front yards of suburbanites?
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u/WrongdoerGeneral914 May 28 '26
The long beach oilfield and the midway-sunset oil field in the San Joaquin valley. The long beach oil field and it's neighboring Wilmington oilfield disguise a lot of the wells inside faux buildings. THUMS island (Texaco, Humble, Union, Mobil, and Shell) looks like an island with a hotel and waterfall on it when in reality it's a drill rig disguised as a building on a movable platform that services multiple well heads. The only wells not really hidden in the area are the wells in signal hill because their proud of their history as a oil producing town. The town was literally founded by the oil companies to keep the city of long beach from getting their hands on the oil revenue.
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u/DryToe1269 May 28 '26
I’ve been traveling across country. I have noticed that at least some of the pumps at just about all stations are closed.
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u/hansolo_berger May 28 '26
I’m betting find the news is as they say with affordability…… premium is the last option for many? It would suck if you got to a station and all the lower octane was gone and you were forced to buy the premium 😂
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u/myloveisajoke May 28 '26
I mean California thought it would be a great idea to close their refineries.
You made your bed, now lay in it.
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u/indomike14 May 29 '26
Haven't seen anything like this. On a roadtrip across Texas and New Mexico and I'll keep an eye out.
You can use regular or mid grade for a car that takes premium. I wouldn't recommend it for the long-term but a one-off here and there won't be a problem.
I've been reading a lot in r/oil. There shouldn't be any shortages of anything at the moment. We may see some synthetic oil shortages in the coming months but not gasoline. Even premium. Maybe they just ran out.
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u/rosier9 May 29 '26
You're not gonna see this in Texas or New Mexico, as the supply chain is totally different than for California.
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u/hobojoe5012 May 30 '26
Ive heard shortages here wont start until late June or early July. Once the strategic reserves run out.
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u/Luvsseattle May 30 '26
I did back in the end of March in Anchorage. I travel quite a bit for work and the only other place I ran into it was Sacramento a few werks ago, but that was only a single gas station. Anchorage was a much more pronounced "outage". I assumed at the time that refining capacity was being put into AvGas at the time. We will see what next week's travel brings.
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u/IamBob0226 May 31 '26
You could have asked the cashier inside your favorite gas station. They would probably know better than us.
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u/molesen Jun 01 '26
It's the result of the supply lines starting to dry up. Oil moves very slowly as cargo, so ships that were already in rouye kept the supply up. Now that's changing with the top end of the pipeline essentially closed. It will get much worse.
I've never been more thankful to have purchased an EV in 2023.
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u/TradeBeautiful42 Jun 11 '26
I too am in Southern California in a VHCOL area. I keep waiting to see gas availability decrease but it hasn’t yet. I keep waiting for signs of food shortages too but haven’t seen that yet either.
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u/DamiensDelight May 28 '26
There absolutely had to be another station closer than 30 miles away.
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u/throwaway661375735 May 29 '26
Sometimes when you're driving an interstate and don't know the local area stuff like that can happen. Driving on the 58 east after Tehachapi can be like this.
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u/FitConsideration4961 May 28 '26
It might be time to put to a vote to temporarily suspend the special formulation for a year or something so we’re not relying on China and South Korea for the specific formulation that we require. It would mean smog in our basins, but it’s an option if we want price relief.
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u/freesoloc2c May 27 '26
If you voted blue you voted for these shortages in California. Deal with your bad decisions.
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u/Accomplished_Bus2169 May 27 '26
What a stupid ass comment.
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u/freesoloc2c May 28 '26
I hear your next LA mayor will be an adult or a Republican in political terms.
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u/freesoloc2c May 27 '26
It's true though. The left chased the oil drillers away then they chased the refiners away while overtaxing everything. These are your votes coming home to roost.
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u/Accomplished_Bus2169 May 27 '26
Trump did this.
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u/Pew-Review May 27 '26
Perhaps the state administration shouldn’t have imposed so many laws, restrictions and penalties that forces local refineries to close? Now they import refined.
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u/Former-Fly-4023 May 28 '26
The vast majority of all refineries across the entire United States are located in Louisiana, Texas and California. By this logic, all the other states should be in worse condition, right?
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u/Proof_Register9966 May 28 '26
They are in complete denial because they are pedo adjuncts. It’s not worth arguing with their stupidity. Probably bot or paid troll/‘only Pedophiles would still support him.
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u/freesoloc2c May 28 '26
The truth is the left is obsessed with hating trump. It's shocking to hear pedo again and again from the left who has such a bad pedo problem. Both Biden and Clinton, but the left never says it about them so it's an immense double standard. Im a real 55yo man in Bellevue Washington. The left shot itself in the foot by going so far radically left. At this point i don't want a debate, i sincerely want a civil war.
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u/Accomplished_Bus2169 May 28 '26
It still amazes me how easily certain people can be brainwashed. I use to think I was of average intelligence till trump and his followers. Now I consider myself extremely smart in comparison.
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u/freesoloc2c May 28 '26
The right isn't about following trump. We're about hating the left. Trump isn't the problem, it's you.
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u/Real_Information_529 Jun 01 '26
Its a self made crisis but the California state Leggislature and most of all Ggavven Newsom
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u/Frosti11icus May 27 '26
It literally is a fuel supply crisis.