We have hit the Point of No Return for the California Energy Crisis

Gavin Newsom has succeeded in taking down the oil and gas market, and this was one of my most important podcasts. Mike Ariza, a refinery expert who has been working in the industry for decades, stopped by the Energy News Beat podcast, and what a show.

Mike has been working with several key people in the state trying to get the story out there. We need federal intervention today. Not Tomorrow – Today.

This is a challenge for our great Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, and our Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent. This is a problem of Venezuelan and Iranian proportions. In fact, California is such a national security crisis that I called out two days ago on the podcast “This California Crisis is just as big as the Iranian conflict,” and Tim Stewart of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association said, “Stu, you are right”, and today Mike also confirmed, it could bring the entire United States Republic down.

1. California’s Energy Crisis The transcript centers on an impending crisis involving the potential shutdown of major oil refineries in California, which could severely disrupt the state’s energy and fuel supply.

2. National Security & Military Implications The discussion emphasizes how refinery closures would threaten national security and military readiness, with consequences extending beyond California to the entire western United States.

3. Government Policy & Regulatory Impact There’s significant focus on how policies from the California Air Resources Board and Governor Newsom’s administration have contributed to refinery closures and increased dependence on imported fuels.

4. Geopolitical & Foreign Influence Concerns The transcript raises allegations about Chinese influence on California’s energy policies and questions about transparency and potential corruption in decision-making.

5. Federal Intervention & Emergency Measures Speakers call for urgent federal action, including potential invocation of the Defense Production Act, to address the crisis.

6. Economic & Supply Chain Consequences The discussion explores interconnected factors including global tensions, supply chain disruptions, infrastructure limitations, and the loss of skilled refinery workers.

7. Potential Economic Devastation The transcript warns of catastrophic outcomes including skyrocketing fuel prices, food shortages, and potential civil unrest if the situation isn’t resolved.

This interview is not about clickbait. We are in a full-on crisis, and while I was joking about “Cats and Dogs Living Together,” we need Federal intervention on the remaining 7 refineries in California before it is too late.

It is the brain trust, or the men like Mike, who are leaving the jobs. And once the talent pool is gone, even Mike Rowe won’t be able to save the Western Half of the United States.

You can connect with Mike on X Mike Ariza @MikeAriza4531

Mike is rolling out a town hall coming up, and we will be getting you the information.

This is probably one of the most important podcasts we have done, and hopefully, we can shake a few trees. As Mike Umbro has said, we need to Save California. And I am all in, but we have to get this to the right people.

 

Shout out to Reese Energy Consulting

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Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:00:01] The point of no return california\’s group gas crisis at threat to military readiness i\’ve got a special guest that more on the energy newsbeat Holy smokes, Batman, I\’ll tell you what, we\’ve got a special guest today. We\’ve got Mike, and I\’ll you what? I\’m looking forward to this conversation. Let me add to the stage, the point of no return, California\’s gas crisis, a threat to military readiness, Town Hall, tell us what\’s going on, Mike.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:00:40] Well, as far as the town hall, we\’re having that at Chico State University on April 2nd. Professor Niche from USC and Assemblyman Stan Ellis will be joining us. I\’ve been working in collaboration with them since basically September on what\’s going on with the industry. Katie has wrote many articles on this, including our force readiness report, which was actually quoted, or should I say cited. In the letter that Chevron and Marathon corporations submitted to the Air Resource Board and the governor, them and then the PBF has also submitted letters to the air resource board and the Governor stating basically if they do not revise these amendments on cap and investment that they\’re about to vote on that all six of the remaining seven refineries in California are going to shut down.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:01:40] This is a national crisis. In fact, I was on a podcast with some folks this week. And in fact, it was Tim Stewart. He is the president of the United States Oil and Gas Association. And I said, Tim, the California crisis of refineries is equal to the Iran. Uh… Crisis right now because it is the entire west coast that this is going to impact he says do you write mike this is not this is a catastrophe

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:02:16] Yeah, and we\’ll go back in history just a little bit. From 1980 to about 2023, we had 41 refineries and they gradually went away. As we hit 2023, we had 11 refinerys. Then the state decided to get Rodeo and ConocoPhillips and Marathon Martinez and convert them to renewable diesel. Right. Okay. Well, that\’s fine and dandy, other than they\’re losing a bunch of money every quarter. But when you take them off crude oil, it took them away from producing gasoline and producing jet fuel. So as of 2023, we went down from 11 down to nine refineries. And at that point, back then, we were importing 20% of our gasoline. That was the state solution. Well, we\’ll just import it. We\’ll just keep importing it from overseas. What\’s wrong with that? And then the state… Signed into law this rule this law where the refineries had to hold up extra inventory in their tanks of gasoline jet and then they wanted the refinery to build extra tankage. Now where you\’re going to do that who knows but the bottom line is this is another hundreds of millions of dollars out of the refinery\’s pockets. When the governor signed that into law Philip 66 in Wilmington four days later gave them their notice. Have to give a one-year notice. We\’re shutting down, we\’re done. Not so much after that, Valero and Venetia, the most efficient and advanced refinery in the state, they gave their notice with their intent to shut down. So since then, as of October, Phillips 66 went down, completely down. As of January 31st, Valero went down and these reports of April are bogus. Did Valero announce that? But because they cut their crude oil contracts, canceled them in October, me and the professor and Silliman Ellis figured out, just kind of calculated, they\’re probably shutting down in January, and they did. January 31st, they shut off crude to the crude unit, and then everything goes down behind it. And the whole time, they were preparing the refinery to go into a mothball state. So we ended up losing a total of another 20% of our gasoline now, 40 to 42% of our gasoline is being imported from South Korea, India, Singapore, and then I\’m sure you heard of the Houston going to the Bahamas and then through the Panama Canal. So we\’re importing all of this fuel and at the same time when Valero went down, one thing we were concerned about was The fact that California\’s infrastructure was not designed to offload all of this fuel Okay, we\’re talking the gasoline and the jet fuel and the diesel Not just gasoline, you know, Valero made a 1.3 million gallons of diesel and jet fuel every day to 4.3 billion gallons of gasoline So as soon as Valero started as soon Valero really went down not with the media is reporting April When Valero was really down in January the prices in California started to go up, just like we predicted, because we\’ve reached that threshold of our ability to offload fuels tankers.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:05:44] Now here\’s where it gets, let me just interject for half a second. I\’m going to put a little pen here. Hold your thought for just a second, the straight of hormones straight of hormones, uh, we import only 2% of what\’s going on in the Iran conflict right now in the United States that comes from Gulf States, that is oil that goes from the straight hormones from either Saudi Arabia or any of those other areas. Guess where it goes. It goes to Asia for refining China. All those that you just mentioned that we\’re now importing products from. Including China. Including China, go ahead. They just banned all exports, which is going to trickle down to everybody else. And so everybody else is buckling up. I\’m thinking $10, $15 gasoline because this is snowballing. This is a global snowball that\’s in a slow-walk process that\’s about to hit the mainstream media.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:06:52] And California is even in a bigger predicament. You\’re spot on there, Stu. China is supplying California with fuel now, and they have cut off their diesel, they cut off the gasoline, and then all the other Asian countries are affected. Now, California, in its infinite wisdom, Mr. Newsome and your minions, okay, we used to import four to 5% of our crude oil, because California has the fifth largest crude oil reserves in the country. And we used to import four to five percent. Now we\’re importing 70% for a lot less refineries. And of that 70%, about 30% of it, far higher than anywhere in the country, is coming from the Middle East. So that crude oil is gonna have a bigger impact, the actual crude oil, is gonna have a big impact on the state. Obviously the crude oil will go into the countries that are producing fuel for us, refining that crude oil into fuel for, that\’s going to have a bigger impact too. You\’re talking prices are shooting through the roof. Like I said, when Valera went down, prices went up almost 90 cents a gallon right when the Iranian war started. So the ability to import fuel started to have tremendous effect on the state right then and now it\’s like you said, snowball. It\’s a snowball effect.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:08:17] And Governor Herrgell, excuse me, Governor Newsom, basically said it\’s Trump\’s fault.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:08:26] Yeah, well that\’s, yeah, of course, it\’s anybody\’s fault this is on, but you know, Trump\’s the buzzword.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:08:32] Oh my goodness i got a check here\’s here\’s where i want to throw this uh… We baby on the conversation and this ugly baby on a doorstep venezuela oil is heavy crude in the gulf states crude is is all geared up for that secretary best and did a brilliant job with being able to put price control mechanisms through the bank of …butter. So that all venezuela money goes to cutter is managed by the united states hear me out here for a sec because you know i\’m gonna i\’ve got a trail to california on this trail it\’s gonna go around the world but secretary besant did a great job locking down the money venezuelas happy the narco terrorists are not getting paid all the all the money is then going back to venezuala and everybody\’s happy that same pricing mechanism is about to get dropped on iran they were putting uh… Two billion dollars a year to do these in the blowfish blown up crap around and and and over there so all the other proxies are going to go away secretary best sent has already eviscerated the iranian monetary scheme uh… Their whole system is gone So he\’s about to drop the Venezuelan… Money system through Qatar. Now here\’s where I want a challenge for our greatest secretary of energy ever we\’ve ever had, Secretary Chris Wright and Secretary Besant, greatest secretary of treasury we\’ve had. Follow the money. Let\’s go check out Gavin Newsom and California and find the money. If you can eviscerate. Iran\’s total banking system you can find out who\’s paying who in california because there\’s a money trail evidently from china to californian and the consumers in californa are paying for all of this crap going on.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:10:37] Does it make sense? Well, no. And you add to the fact when Katie wrote in that phenomenal report about China. China has direct influence on the decision that the California Air Resource Board, the policies that they are making, have been derived from Chinese reports from Xingqiao University, which just happens to be where Xi Jinping also went to school.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:11:00] You just tied the whole knot together. It\’s all related.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:11:05] Oh, absolutely.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:11:06] Isn\’t that phenomenal? So you add Katie Grimes into this mix. Mike, you are right in there. You\’re in there with the professor. This is a gigantic story. I\’m sorry for getting excited because I really want the help of Secretary Besant and the Treasury to nail this thing down because we have got to save California. One of the greatest guys out on the planet is Mike Umbro, and he has been trying for years. I love Mike Umbreau. And I absolutely was like, oh, let\’s just put a wall up in California and throw everybody out. And I\’m like, no, he\’s like, No, man, we got to fight to save it. But at that whole loop is an amazing loop of corruption that is being exposed.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:11:50] Oh, absolutely. And the loop, also what it\’s causing, it\’s really, when you look at it, it\’s almost unbelievable. It\’s like with the refineries. Back in, I\’m going to say eight months ago, the Chevron CEO had made a statement, basically, the state has been with us for 20 years. Right. And things need to change, even eight months ago. He had made a warning that said, hey, things need to change. We already moved our headquarters after 140 years, and we can\’t keep running with this. Then they hammered Valero, and then they came with this cap and investment was like cap and trade. It reminds me of global cooling and global warming. Now it\’s cap and trading, now it\’s Cap and Invest. It\’s a damn shakedown, it\’s a massive tax. So instead of listening to that CEO. And say, hey, maybe we need to kind of take a look at things. You know, how are we doing things? Maybe we should, you know, kind of reevaluate some things. They double down. They double-down on them. This cap and invest, it\’s huge. It\’s like PBS says, you\’re raising our fees 400%. You\’re not charging the imports where these refineries pollute. They bring all these ships of pollute across the ocean. They\’d sit in San Pablo Bay, and they\’re sitting there running their stacks. None of that, they don\’t get charged a dime, just the in-state refiners. So instead of listening to, you know, taking the Chevron CEO\’s comments into consideration, they doubled down and then PBF wrote the first letter and they even cited Valero, what happened to Valero in their letter, then Chevron wrote the letter and then when I was on with Professor Bichet and Stan Ellis with Aaron Ryan on her We the People radio show, I made a comment I\’m like, you now, I wish Marathon would get in on this and that would be Jenny Huff from ABC sends me an email. Hey, Marathon just sent a letter. So she sent it to me. So you got all these refineries that they\’re gonna shut down. They\’re not gonna keep dealing with this. The states right now don\’t see any sign. You look at their track record, they\’re not going to change. And the whole premise of my point of no return. Was the fact that refineries do not start back with a key. No. And the condition, when the refinerys go into their maintenance for shutdown, they still have inventories in their tanks to help start the units back up. They have catalyst on site, new catalysts, so they dump the old catalysts out for the conversion or cracking units, then they dump it out, they put the new stuff in, go through the procedure to start up, They have crude oil ready to rock and roll. Valero has none of that, all their intermediate tanks are empty, the crude oil is gone. They\’re dumping the catalyst, the coke for the coker, dumping it and sending it overseas. This is where you run into the problem and General Holt had made a comment about a plane sitting idle, they don\’t like that. Well, same thing with the refinery and it restarted and then the kicker is like Valero and it\’s unique complexity I call it. You gotta have people that are qualified to start it back up. And they\’re gone. They\’re gone? Well, they\’re done. I mean, some of them, my friend said about 35 people when they heard about the shutdown, real quickly left. Valero offer transfers to people to go to Texas, to go Louisiana. So if you\’re, you think if you are a 40 year old man or woman and you can make the same money or more, keep your tenure with the company and go to one of those locations like where you\’re at, Abilene. Yep. You know, your cost of living is just like a third, and then you\’re gonna turn around. Then you\’re going to turn around, hey, can you come back? No. What? Who is this? So this is the problem. You lose your qualified people to start damn things back up. That\’s the point of no return. Once they\’re down, and then if all these refineries go down, and it\’s thousands and thousands of operators, thousands of control board operators, they\’re gone.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:16:09] What if if you have a message to the great secretary chris right right now Mike how can we stop? This this is this is worse. I don\’t know that a tourniquet could save a leg or save a life right now This is this. Is this is a emergency room Problem, what would you say to secretary chriss right?

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:16:38] I would say, Mr. Secretary, please immediately invoke the Defense Production Act and the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution on all of the refineries, on all the infrastructure related to the refinery, both upstream and downstream. Take the control of the Air Resource Board in California totally away, along with the California Energy Commission. While they are invoking the Defense Production Act on Crude Oil production for Sable. And the platforms, Harmony Heritage and Hondo off the Santa Barbara coast, that is important to get that going again. But when you have one refinery in California, they\’ll produce three times more than the one refineries feeds. So the emergency, no jet fuel, no gasoline, we\’re infrastructure limited. Even if we\’re stupid enough to rely on the imports like we are doing right now, we can\’t get anymore. They can\’t provide anymore. The infrastructure doesn\’t exist. And once these refineries are down, it\’s gonna play hell to get them restarted. So Mr. Secretary, this is the real problem. And it\’s not just a California defense issue. It is the West Coast. It is entire nation.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:17:55] This is a national security risk. This is the whole thing. Everybody\’s saying, oh, it\’s a little… No, this is a United States. It\’s Arizona. It\’s New Mexico. It\’s Washington. It\’s Oregon.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:18:08] Reno, Vegas, Phoenix. It\’s going on, it\’s trickling up to Washington and Oregon, the whole west coast, all of the bases. Travis, I mean Travis on a peaceful day uses a couple hundred thousand gallons a day of jet. You know, when you got sorties going, you\’re well over a million. You\’ll run out of jet fuel real quick. It is a total national security issue, and also it\’s a civil unrest issue like this country\’s never seen. You\’ll have, General Holt was saying, cities have three or four days of food supply, five days tops. When you have no diesel to get food to the cities, when you have diesel for the farmers, No diesel and gasoline for emergency equipment. Society just totally unravels, and people will be dying. I don\’t want to sound like an alarmist, but it\’s just a fact. It\’s like Chevron said, Mr. Wall said, they provide 60% of the jet fuel for SFO. PBF in their letter says, we provide 40% of the fuel for the SFO, to me, that adds up to 100%. So you\’ve got San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, San a LAX. Travis, Mather, Veale Air Force Base, Edwards, Miramar Naval Air Station, Recore Air Station Arizona, Ellis Air Force base up in Nevada, no fuel.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:19:41] This is holy cow. I knew it was bad, but you Mike, you\’re bringing up some stuff that is just even even more frightening that this is and I think this adds more validity to my statement to the president of the Oklahoma, the United States Oil and Gas Association, you know, Tim Stewart, great guy. But when I said this is bigger than the Iranian, yeah, because it\’s home.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:20:10] Well, it is, and you go back to a real simple analogy, Stu. You look back in the 70s, okay? What happened? We had an oil embargo. When the oil came back, refineries came back up. They took America off her knees. Back then, California had 41. Right now, we\’re down to seven. If those other refinerys. Well, of the seven, six of them, yes. And then the other one, it won\’t stay open. But that\’s the thing. California gets into a shortage, which when Valero shut down, the prices started taking off because we couldn\’t import any more fuel, offload any more fuel from these tankers. So right there, we showed where we\’re at. California showed where it\’s at with its infrastructure. We run into shortages, whether it be minor, moderate, or severe. California does not, like we did in the 70s, have the refineries to pull us out of that shortage. If it\’s a prolonged severe shortage, we can\’t pull ourselves out of it. We can\’t refine our way out of it. There\’s no pipelines coming into California, nothing coming in here. It\’s all maritime.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:21:20] And you don\’t have the trucks to get on the road because you got illegal alien, just kidding. No, no, I\’m not kidding. Well, that, well, that.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:21:27] Well, that, that and you don\’t have the infrastructure. You don\’t know the trucks. You don\’t have the infrastructure. I mean, you\’re, you\’r taking in millions of barrels of crude or product. There\’s no infrastructure with trucks or rail to do that. It doesn\’t exist.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:21:42] It does not the whole system is mind-boggling it this is this is got to be and i think katie grimes in my interview with her and she is a great lady absolutely love that one she flat out said uh… I think it is uh… Treacherous it trip uh… It is not treachery treacherously it well traders because it is my it is no It you can\’t be that incompetent.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:22:12] No, absolutely not. This is intentional. Well, when you\’re basing your damn policies off Chinese, uh, reports from a Chinese university, uh hello, um, wow. And then, and then I\’ll throw one more thing out there. When you expand, um with the refineries, okay. And you run into the, uh with the import problem, it\’s not just events in the world. This event that occurred like with Hormuz and what\’s going on right now, this is one of the events that the three of us had predicted if we have a significant event in the world, it\’s going to directly affect California. But you can have something as simple as storms, big storms. I cut Valero back three different times because the tankers were being held up in Alaska. One time we were six days or six hours away from totally shutting down because we were having so much trouble getting crude oil because of storms holding up the ships. At the dock of Port of Los Angeles about a month and a half ago, maybe two months now, they had a fire on a cargo ship and the fire was so bad, they pulled that ship away and partially out to sea because they were worried about damage occurring to the dock at the Port of los angeles. There\’s many things that real world events that have occurred, like when my wife went back to visit her family, a typhoon went through Hong Kong and Guangzhou, it shut ship in there for three days. All these things we\’re beholden to all these different countries, and whether it\’s acts of God or it\’s act of war or what you\’re going on right now, all these things make you vulnerable, make you so vulnerable to not having the fuel that you need.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:23:56] Uh… Unbelievable uh… Uh… I i i am just kinda uh… Intention when we sit back and take a look You\’ve got seven refineries there now. Six of them are going to be going, six of them already saying they\’re gonna close, correct? The seventh is now borderline.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:24:24] The seventh is Valero Wilmington. The professor said that they have totally wrote off the value of that refinery. And when I was chatting with him and Stan, it\’s, you\’re looking at, they\’re going to go into a turnaround first part of next year. It\’s doubtful they\’ll come back up. You know, turnarounds cost 300, 400, 500 million dollars or more. Right. So why are you gonna invest that kind of money in a refinery in a state where, you know, you\’re being taxed two or three or $400 million, and you\’re dealing with all these environmental regulations? You got the cleanest burning, cleanest operating refineries in the world. Our refinerys in our country run very clean, but in California, it steps up to the world, and holy, we gotta pay another $300 million? No, we got a responsibility to our shareholders. Valero stock went up. When Valero shut down, their stock went up.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:25:23] Um… Wow. Other because we know that the there is federal precedence under the Constitution for the United States federal to step in and override overreach regulatory issues. We know that they can do that. And he looks like he\’s going to do that for Sable.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:25:55] Yes, I believe that\’s in process. But again, yes, you get the crude oil production up. But the problem in this state, the problem for our country, the problem, for our national security, is our ability to produce our own fuel. And that\’s gone away. It\’s not totally gone away, but I mean, I don\’t know what else they need when you get Chevron, PBF, and Marathon, all these corporations in unison. Singing the same tune. I mean, it\’s not just people talking. It\’s in black and white now. The only thing they\’re short of, in California, you have to submit a letter of your intent to shut down with a one-year warning. Basically, this is the courtesy letter to the state.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:26:49] I think you got a one year shot of trying to to to let everybody know you\’re going to do it boom here you go

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:26:59] We gotta get Valero back up. We need to try to get Phillips 66 back up We\’re already on the cliff all those different things for moves But all these different things that can impact the ships, you know The infrastructure there\’s so many things that it can impact that we\’re there We\’re there the flexibility is gone now and the state\’s seeing it Arco Got a picture of Arco down in LA 1050 a gallon Wow. You know, this prediction… That professor that we put together in our report and then Professor Michet through his study and in his math, he\’s one of these guys that if he tells you your math is wrong, your math is just wrong. He\’s very, very detailed, very articulate. And his study on California gas being $8.43 a gallon I believe was based on a $70 a barrel price on crude, on It\’s taken off. And again, the proportion that the country\’s gone up compared to the proportion that California has gone up is because California has all these other problems that the rest of the country doesn\’t have. You know, when I was doing an interview with Aton, I think is the gentleman\’s name, they were talking about the Oh, what the heck is it? The E-15. So they wanted the state to go with more ethanol, right? Right. And he commented, well, you know, some of these Democrat, liberal, you know, in this California legislature say, well a lot of the other country\’s already on this, okay, that\’s fine, but you can\’t compare us to the rest of the country. The rest of the country does not have an oil production problem. The rest of the does not have a refining problem. It\’s apples and oranges. It\’s the same thing, oil and refining, but there\’s no comparison between California and the rest of the country. And even now with this Iranian issue, we see that. Yes, prices are going up, but not like they are in California.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:29:05] This is, this is a real issue. Oh yeah. Holy smokes.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:29:12] That\’s the biggest, you know, it\’s like I told Stan when I went to his office, you know, before I knew a lot of stuff, you know, with us, especially with us working together, we\’ve all learned so much, learned so much from each other. You know, I saw the biggest economical collapse coming in the state\’s history, the history of the country. And now this is all coming. It\’s coming. I never, I never would have anticipated It got so bad that three major corporations would join forces and tell the state, you either correct us or we\’re done. We\’re out.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:29:50] If you also think about the snowball effect of what I\’m gonna say $10 gasoline, because if you don\’t have, it\’s gonna be 10 to $15 gasoline, whatever the number is, it\’s just an arbitrary number right now. But when you sit back and take a look at importing in from China, they\’re gonna hold you just hostage. You\’re gonna have, in fact, last, when I interviewed Katie Grimes before, I tracked three tankers from Russia that went to India. And then we bought that jet fuel from India coming over here. Boy, that\’s good for the environment, by the way. You know, when you buy Indian refined Russian oil, that\’s really good for that.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:30:34] Yes, liberals, put your Ukrainian flags back in your garage.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:30:38] Yeah, go ahead. Just put it back in the garage because you\’ve been driving around. You\’ve been flying on Russian fumes. But here\’s the problem. Think about $15 to $15, you\’ve got the food that\’s not going to be delivered because it\’s not gonna be there. You got the devaluation of homes, the devaluation, the whole economic collapse is there. This is an economic collapse. This is like the Ghostbusters line, dogs and cats living together. I almost feel like Dan Aykroyd in the mayor\’s office. Dogs and cats are living together, oh no, this is this is that bad.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:31:21] Yes, it\’s unprecedented in the history of our country, and it will be, it has the potential to be the downfall of this Republic. And that\’s what people need to understand in Texas, everywhere is California is a major deal and all the States tied to it. It\’s a major, major deal. It could lead to Well, I\’m not going to keep repeating myself, it could be a total disaster, national disaster.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:31:48] You have I mean we saw what happened when the summer of love when you had all of the unrest going on by the paid Paid protesters. Yeah, you know we saw how that went around These are not gonna be paid protesters This is gonna be civil unrest and they\’re gonna be really grumpy because they ain\’t got no food. That\’s a Texas Well, that\’s the thing

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:32:13] Oh, absolutely. You said it in Texas. And the thing is, it\’s gonna be my family doesn\’t have food. I can\’t get food. What am I going to do? Right. I\’m going to protect my family. And it will go quickly. You won\’t have enough National Guard to take care of it. These cities will go absolutely crazy. And, you know, it is self-induced. And they don\’t care. Again, we got the Chinese reports driving the rogue agency that\’s making all the policies that\’s crippling the state.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:32:49] And Mike, I\’m bringing to stage right now. This is the straight of Hormuz right now, there are several tankers right here. This one is right here, it\’s the Oman, destination is going to Oman and it\’s actually a container ship. So when you look at all the guppies not wanting to go around here, I\’m gonna get ready to ask you a question here. And as we roll around here, here\’s Karg Island. This is where 90% of the oil of Iran is shipped out of. There\’s no tankers there right now. Now, let me just go ahead and I\’m gonna zoom out. I\’m using marinetraffic.com. The pipeline for Saudi Arabia goes across Riyadh. There are now, notice all the tankers over here. They\’re doing about. Uh, 5 million barrels per day over on Riyadh on this side, avoiding it. They got a nice little safety valve.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:33:54] Yeah, that was smart.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:33:55] Oh, it was. It was like 20, 40 years ago when they put it in there. They\’re going, boy, we got paid now. Let me zoom in. I\’m now zooming in for our podcast listeners on the California West Coast. And we look at the tanker and traffic. Where were you working with Valero in the area, the Los Angeles area.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:34:17] No, Venetia, up north. Up north, San Pablo Bay.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:34:21] San Pablo Bay, let\’s go up north.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:34:23] Just right there. Go back down, go back down. San Francisco. Okay. And then just go to the right. Just go to the right to the tip of the water. Keep going to the right and right up in that area is where Benicia is. Okay, got it.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:34:37] So as we\’re sitting here, I\’m just trying to look at the tankers that are out there right now. This is a crude oil tanker and it is underway. This looks like it was flagged from Africa. People think they\’re actually doing, they\’re doing more harm. Look at this. This is British tanker. And they think they\’re doing themselves good by looking at the tankers going around this used to be a look at this uh… This used california used to the energy independent by drilling their own oil

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:35:17] That\’s correct, we\’re importing 70% of it now. We used to, it used to like 4% I think was the import. And then a lot of the, you won\’t call it imported, a lot the oil that came in was from Alaska, from the North Slope. About, when I was running Valero, about… When I was runnin\’ Valero the crude slate was about 25,000 through the Crimson Pipeline, San Joaquin Valley Crude, which is now shut down. And then approximately 70 to 70 to between 70 and 80,000 barrels a day was Alaska North Slope brought down from our tankers from, you know, from Alaska, obviously, and then offloaded at the dock at Venetia. So back when I was running it, almost all of our fuel, almost all of it, maybe 15, 20% was coming from out of Conus outside of the United States. But the majority of it was in fact coming from America.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:36:14] Wow, where is the sable offshore?

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:36:19] It\’s the Hondo Heritage and Harmony platforms off of Santa Barbara, off the coast of Santa Barbara.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:36:25] Santa Barbara, okay, great. There\’s Sanford.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:36:29] Yeah, go back down go back. Yeah. Oh, there it is

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:36:32] So it would be right down in this area then.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:36:34] Yeah, just off the it\’s off the It\’s off the ocean right off the outer continental shelf. That\’s where they\’re all at. Okay, three platforms. And then there\’s a pipeline that\’s been shut down since 2015. And from there, it goes to the Los Flores Canyon kind of like a little processing like a pre refinery. And in the pipeline goes up to Bakersfield runs up to bakersfield. Okay. And then the pipeline from there would go save crimson pipeline. Would go from Bakersfield, Kern County, up to the Bay Area, up to the San Francisco Bay Area. Up to these refineries here? Right there. Right up there. Yes.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:37:11] Wow. I\’ll tell you what, this is a national disaster of biblical proportions that I\’ve never seen before. I don\’t know how to phrase it other than pretend i\’m dan ackroyd going cats and dogs living together this is absolutely that bad

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:37:34] Well, today, today on the podcast, the general said Mad Max about five or six times, I mean, it\’s just, it, it just, just insane that we would get to this point, but then we look at what\’s going on and the drivers who\’s driving this train, like you said, follow the money trail, follow money trail.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:37:50] Uh… I\’ll tell you what if something comes out of our challenge to the great secretary besant that man is a hoot i absolutely love that man he had he is fantastic secretary besat when he goes like this i would never want to say anything bad about that man you would have Disarray you I mean

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:38:12] Yeah, and not hesitate.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:38:14] And not even give you a second eye, but our great secretary of energy, Secretary Chris Wright, I\’ve had the pleasure of talking to him a bunch over the years and I\’ve modeled my podcast after his heart\’s desire is to end energy poverty. And everything Gavin Newsom is doing is the exact opposite of what it is. I just interviewed Mike yesterday, in fact it went out this morning, was the interview with Liz Truss, she was the former Prime Minister of the UK.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:38:50] Oh yeah, yeah.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:38:51] And you know what her comment was, Mike? She said, California is very much like the UK. They\’re, they\’re going downhill fast. And I am with Mike Umbro at 100%. We got to do whatever we can to save California from itself.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:39:11] The only thing that\’s going to do that is absolute fit. Like I said, if I had a chance to talk to one of the secretaries, we got to intervene. He\’s got to use his authority.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:39:21] Wow. And how do people get a hold of you, Mike?

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:39:25] That gascrisis.org domain, they can contact me or you\’re able to contact the professor or Assemblyman Ellis through that as well.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:39:36] Fantastic. And also, are you on LinkedIn yet? Yes. Okay, I\’ll have that on the show notes as well too, so people can reach out to you on LinkedIn as well. So I\’ll tell you what, I have a feeling this may not be our last podcast together, because I\’m very, I think we\’ve just scratched the surface on this. And I kind of want to really get into a few more of the details on this And if you have those papers, send them over to me because I wanna get rolling on getting this published out on all the channels this morning. So let\’s try to, if you get an update, A, Katie Grimes and the California Globe go to Cal, you know, I love that publication.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:40:21] I send her every, I send Katie, there\’s a few people, Sean Reynolds does a really good job up in Bellevue, Washington. And then Katie, Stan, Stan Ellison, Stan Ellis put me in contact with her three or four months ago. And ever since then, everything I find out, you know, and we just, we go back and forth. Yeah, I know it\’s, it\’s well, you know the thing is it\’s got it like we\’re doing now, Stu. And I, and I\’m new into this stuff, you know, about four or five months now, I really am. I was just, my life was my life, you One thing I\’ve learned is it\’s time where we got all hands on deck, all hands need to be on deck together. Get the information and just don\’t give it to one person. Give it to everybody that can carry that transmitter and keep getting the word out to as many folks. Because the folks in our entire country, not just California, they need to understand this is not good. It\’s dangerous. It\’s unprecedented. And it\’s in.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:41:21] And it\’s intentional. That, to me, is the hardest part to deal with, to think that somebody hates your country that much or that they\’re more interested in personal wealth than they are their own.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:41:38] That they would allow so much harm to come to your fellow brother or sister, which is exactly what they\’re doing.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:41:45] Absolutely no sense. And for all of our Substack listeners and podcast listeners, this is going out across all of the channels. I am so grateful that we were named number one best pod energy podcast in the United States by million podcast.com as well as number four by feed spot. So it\’s nice being on different lists. So, it\’s not the same same list, but it\’s because I\’ve got great guests. It\’s not because of my hairline. You know you sit back and take a look. I really appreciate Everything that you and the professor are doing and I\’d love to visit with him sometime Katie is your first go-to I steal her. I mean I borrow her information But also keep me in the loop because I want to make sure we get you and her back out on the podcast Again and everything else because this is a all hands on deck

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:42:43] Yeah, no, I would enjoy I would definitely certainly entertain and enjoy doing a podcast with Katie. She rocks. Katie just totally rocks.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:42:51] You know, and again, Mike Umbro, I want to give him and George Harmer out there again, all the great energy professionals that are out in California are unsung heroes. Mike, I\’m give you a man hug, you know, but I\’ll tell you what, it would be a manhug because we\’d be doing this kind of a thing. It would not be any of them funny, fuzzy headed kind of things there. So don\’t worry.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:43:15] So don\’t worry, no California hug.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:43:19] It would be a manly kind of a hug there, but I\’ll tell you what. This has been a lot of fun and thank you very much for your great leadership. And, um, hopefully, uh, if Steve Hilton, if you\’re listening to this podcast, you need to have Mike on your show, Steve, and then you need to hire Mike on. You\’re gonna need his expertise in his cabinet. So I guarantee you that\’s gonna be critical. If he makes it to governor, and if the other people won\’t shut down, man, this is a mess.

 

Mike Ariza, Refinergy Expert, Vet  [00:44:00] Yeah, I\’m praying for him because that\’s definitely one thing. We need that and we need the president. And I have no doubt in my mind that Mr. Hilton will work with President Trump hand in hand to fix this damn problem.

 

Stu Turley, Energy News Beat Host [00:44:16] Steve Hilton is one of the coolest guys on the planet. I thoroughly enjoyed my podcast with him and I\’m hoping to get him back on again. So with that, Mike, thank you so much and I\’ll talk to you soon. Thanks. Okay, Stu. Thank you.

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