We have a gasoline price problem here in Southern California. We must pay more than anyone else in the country. Our representatives in Sacramento haven’t found the answers and might not even be looking for the answers. A few people are out there looking, and here are some of the results.

A reporter for the Pasadena Star News, Thomas Elias, may have found a huge part of the reason we are paying such high prices for gasoline here.

It isn’t the “summer blend” or the lack of crude oil to refine. It isn’t refineries that lack capacity to make enough gasoline. It seems it is nothing more than a way to bleed us for more money.

You see, Elias looked at the shipping reports and found that at the same time our prices started to rise, gasoline was being exported to Mexico and Central and South America. In a little over one day, tankers transported enough gasoline to supply us here in SoCal for three days.

And those tankers keep sailing from ports here in SoCal and from refineries in the San Francisco Bay area.

While all of this is going on, we find out the oil companies are making record profits again. The gasoline we buy makes them about $1.50 per gallon more than other refineries in other states. We can’t see that because the reports come out long after the prices spike. Funny how that happens.

Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller

Back in the day, when Standard Oil was divided into many little Standard Oil companies (Standard of California being one of them), the real owner of all of it was John D. Rockefeller. The companies of today are using methods that would make old Mr. Rockefeller proud. Yep, all in the best traditions of the robber barons of steel, railroad and oil fame.

Now, I own a small amount of stock in Chevron. I don’t see the profits for California sales broken out in the total company reports. But from tax reports, we see how much they make per gallon above what is reported overall. Turns out it is around $1.50 per gallon more. Golly, folks … we are paying nearly $1.50 a gallon more at the pump than other places.

And our gasoline is going south.

Our money is going to Houston. At least for the big oil companies.

A while back, I looked on the Chevron web page. They have a little bit of the history there. Funny, they don’t mention much about where they started, Pico-Newhall. They do have a lot about oil fields in Texas. I’m glad they left Mentryville. They have forgotten their roots.

Now, can we get our reps to look at the oil companies? I doubt it. That extra $1.50 we pay lines a few pockets in the Assembly and Senate.

This is my surprised look. If you can’t see it, just know that it doesn’t look like I’m all that shocked. Like I said. Old John D. would be proud.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley, where he serves as executive director of the SCV Historical Society. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com. His older commentaries are archived atDManzer.com; his newer commentaries can be accessed [here]. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].