President Donald Trump said refinery disruptions in Russia and shutdowns in states such as California have become a larger factor in high gasoline prices than crude-oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, as global fuel markets contend with reduced refining capacity and wartime disruptions.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday blamed damaged Russian refineries and refinery closures in Democrat-led states such as California for higher gasoline prices, arguing that crude-oil availability is no longer the central problem facing fuel markets.
“What’s driving up Gasoline is no longer the Strait of Hormuz, because Record Numbers of Barrels are coming out now on an almost daily basis, but the word, ‘Refineries,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Russia’s are being blown up by Ukraine, and where ours are being closed up, in Blue States, like California, by the Dumocrats,” Trump added.
Trump’s comments came as global energy markets face simultaneous disruptions involving Russian refining, Middle Eastern shipping and shrinking refinery capacity in parts of the United States.
Ukraine said Sunday that its long-range strike campaign had disabled 51% of Russia’s oil-refining capacity, although that figure has not been independently verified.
Kyiv has repeatedly targeted Russian refineries, fuel depots and other energy infrastructure as part of an effort to undermine Moscow’s ability to finance and supply its war in Ukraine.
The International Energy Agency has documented a substantial decline in Russian refining activity even without confirming Ukraine’s 51% estimate. In a September analysis of Russian refineries, the agency said refinery throughput fell to about 3.8 million barrels per day in June, its lowest level in more than 20 years and roughly 30% below the previous year.
Russian gasoline production was down approximately 20% from 2025 levels, while diesel output had fallen by nearly 30%, according to the IEA.
Those losses have forced Moscow to restrict fuel exports in an effort to protect domestic supplies.
Russia recently extended restrictions on diesel exports through October, further tightening international supplies of a fuel critical to trucking, agriculture, construction and industry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged last week that Ukraine’s attacks have inflicted measurable economic damage.
“They started attacking oil refineries and openly declared the goal of damaging our economy. Did they achieve their goal? Partially,” Putin said during a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.
Putin estimated that the attacks had cost Russia approximately 1% of gross domestic product.
Trump has previously urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to reduce attacks on Russian refineries, arguing that damaging refining infrastructure can tighten global supplies of gasoline and diesel and increase prices internationally.
Ukraine has rejected calls to abandon the strategy, saying Russia’s petroleum industry provides revenue and fuel used to sustain Moscow’s military campaign.
Trump’s comments Monday also focused attention on a separate problem inside the United States: declining refinery capacity in California.
The Phillips 66 Los Angeles refinery stopped processing crude oil in October 2025. Valero’s Benicia refinery in Northern California subsequently ended refining operations in 2026.
Together, the two facilities accounted for approximately 17% of California’s refining capacity.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration warned in 2025 that losing the two refineries was likely to increase gasoline-price volatility on the West Coast.
California is particularly vulnerable because its fuel market is relatively isolated from the major refining centers along the Gulf Coast.
Unlike much of the country, the West Coast has limited pipeline capacity connecting it with large refining hubs in Texas and Louisiana.
That means fuel lost through refinery shutdowns cannot easily be replaced by gasoline produced elsewhere in the United States.
Imports from Asia and other overseas suppliers are often needed instead, adding transportation costs and exposing California motorists to international market conditions.
The EIA said the Los Angeles and Benicia refineries together represented about 11% of total West Coast refining capacity, even though they accounted for less than 2% of U.S. capacity nationally.
“The supply shortfall left by their exit is therefore likely to have an outsized impact on the region because it cannot be easily filled by other refineries elsewhere in the country,” the agency said.
Federal data released this year confirmed that U.S. refining capacity declined during 2025.
Phillips 66’s Los Angeles facility and LyondellBasell’s Houston refinery together removed roughly 400,000 barrels per day of refining capacity, according to the EIA’s 2026 refinery-capacity assessment.
Valero’s Benicia capacity was then removed from monthly estimates after operations ceased in 2026.
California’s refinery closures have become increasingly political because they have occurred while state leaders pursue policies aimed at reducing petroleum consumption and vehicle emissions.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats have backed increasingly stringent climate policies, including efforts to accelerate the transition toward electric vehicles and renewable energy.
Trump and other Republicans argue those policies have made refinery investment less attractive and contributed to shrinking domestic fuel supplies.
Refinery operators have offered a more complex explanation.
Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier said in 2024 that the decision to close the company’s Los Angeles refinery was not an immediate response to one particular California regulation.
Instead, the company concluded that operating a conventional refinery in California would become increasingly difficult over the long term.
The EIA noted at the time that Phillips 66 cited uncertainty over the long-term sustainability of its California refining business.
California officials have rejected arguments that state policy alone caused the closures and have worked with refiners and fuel importers to maintain supplies during the transition.
The state has also adopted measures intended to reduce gasoline-price spikes, including requirements aimed at maintaining minimum fuel inventories.
Trump’s argument Monday was broader: regardless of why individual facilities shut down, fewer operating refineries mean less capacity to turn crude oil into gasoline and diesel.
That distinction matters because crude-oil supply and refining capacity are separate parts of the fuel market.
Oil can be plentiful while gasoline or diesel remains tight if refiners lack sufficient capacity to process it.
The United States remains the world’s largest petroleum producer, but refineries must convert crude into finished fuels before motorists, truckers and airlines can use it.
Global refining disruptions can therefore push fuel prices higher even when crude-oil supplies remain relatively strong.
The same dynamic is playing out internationally.
Russia has enormous crude-oil production capacity, but Ukrainian drone attacks have damaged or temporarily disabled refineries needed to transform that crude into gasoline, diesel and other products.
That has contributed to shortages inside Russia and reduced the amount of refined fuel available for export.
Trump said Monday that this refining bottleneck has overtaken the Strait of Hormuz as the main factor behind elevated gasoline prices.
Oil and fuel markets nevertheless remain affected by instability around the strait, a critical shipping corridor through which a significant share of global petroleum supplies normally travels.
Middle Eastern crude exports have recently increased despite the conflict, helping ease some concerns about raw-oil availability.
Refined products remain tighter.
That difference helps explain Trump’s emphasis on refinery capacity rather than crude supply.
The president’s comments also come as his administration considers additional steps aimed at reducing fuel costs, particularly diesel prices.
Trump has pressed allies to release petroleum reserves and has explored measures that could expand the availability of certain diesel supplies as higher transportation and agricultural fuel costs work their way through the economy.
The domestic refinery issue may be more difficult to address quickly.
Large refineries require billions of dollars and years of permitting, construction and investment. Once a major facility closes, replacing that capacity is considerably more complicated than increasing crude-oil production.
California illustrates the problem particularly clearly.
The state consumes large quantities of gasoline but has lost multiple refineries while remaining geographically separated from the Gulf Coast refining complex.
The EIA has repeatedly warned that additional shutdowns can increase the frequency and severity of price spikes when remaining facilities experience maintenance problems or outages.
Trump argued Monday that those structural losses, combined with wartime damage to Russian refineries, are now at the heart of the fuel-price problem.
“What’s driving up Gasoline is no longer the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote, “but the word, ‘Refineries.’”
The available data support his broader point that refinery disruptions are placing significant pressure on fuel supplies, particularly through reduced Russian diesel output and California’s loss of refining capacity.
How much of the current increase in U.S. gasoline prices can be attributed specifically to those refinery problems — rather than crude prices, Middle East instability, transportation constraints and other market forces — remains more difficult to isolate.
What is clear is that both Russia and California have lost substantial refining capacity at a time when global fuel markets are already under pressure, leaving the ability to turn crude oil into usable gasoline and diesel an increasingly important part of the energy-price equation.
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