A national strike by petroleum workers is shuttering a San Francisco Bay Area refinery and that work stoppage could push California gas prices up.
The TESORO Refinery in Martinez is already shut down for scheduled maintenance, and the labor dispute means the facility won't be reopening anytime soon.
The plant makes about 8 percent of the state's fuel.
Allison Mac, an analyst at GasBuddy.com, said the work stoppage comes at the same time refineries are switching from winter to summer gasoline fuel blends.
"Right now the prices are increasing, but they were going to be increasing anyways," Mac said. "This is basically what the industry calls the first quarter crawl."
It has been 35 years since refiners have had to deal with a major strike. That stoppage lasted three months.
A short-term labor stoppage might go unnoticed at the pump, but a long strike could further inflate prices that are already heading up, said Jeffery Spring of the Automobile Club of Southern California.
"We're getting into what they call the turnaround season right now, which is when refineries slow down their production to do maintenance so they can switch over from the winter blend gasoline to summer blend gasoline," Spring said.
TESORO's Martinez refinery makes about 8 percent of the state's gasoline. TESORO operates another larger refinery in Carson but the company said it has a plan to keep that plant open.
