Santa Monica, CA – Consumer Watchdog announced today that spot gas prices in Los Angeles have risen 25 cents since Tuesday when an explosion rocked Exxon’s Torrance refinery, according to the Energy Information Administration. Paired with Tesoro’s Martinez facility that is also shut down, 16.5% of California’s refinery capacity is affected.

Consumer Watchdog previously alerted state officials about shutdowns driving prices sharply up and called for state investigations of the downed facilities to investigate artificial price manipulation.

For the most recent letter, see: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/refineryletterfeb18.pdf
For the first letter: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/steelworkersstriketesoroltr.pdf

In its December report, Pump Jacking California’s Climate Protection, Consumer Watchdog warned that oil companies might artificially cut back on gasoline production and inflate gasoline prices to undermine new rules to control greenhouse gas emissions. The report can be viewed here: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/OilIndustryManipulationReport.pdf

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