California Gasoline Premium Jumps After Exxon Plans Flaring

The premium for California-blend gasoline, or Carbob, rose after Exxon Mobil Corp. reported late yesterday its Torrance, California, refinery plans to flare between tomorrow and Oct. 31.

The emissions aren’t related to a breakdown, Exxon said in a notice to state regulators. The 150,000-barrel-a-day refinery resumed normal operations Oct. 5 after an Oct. 1 power failure that reduced output.

California gasoline premiums surged as a result of the outage and after a fire that knocked out a crude-processing unit at Chevron Corp. (CVX)’s plant in Richmond, near San Francisco, in August. The shutdown of a Chevron pipeline that delivers crude to Northern California because of contamination also reduced supplies.

The premium for California-blend gasoline in Los Angeles versus futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange surged 22.5 cents to 57.5 cents a gallon at 1:43 p.m. in New York, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The same fuel in San Francisco jumped 22.5 cents to 49.5 cents above futures.

California-grade, or CARB, diesel in Los Angeles was unchanged at 15.5 cents a gallon higher than heating oil futures on the Nymex. The fuel in San Francisco was steady at 15 cents a gallon versus futures.

Conventional, 87-octane gasoline in Portland, Oregon, added 8 cents to 36 cents against gasoline futures.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Clark in New York at aclark27@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net