Good morning, here's what the Oilman has for you today:

• California Sets Sights on Refiners with Minimum St …

• Norway Boosts Investments in Oil and Gas

• Tweet of the Day

California Sets Sights on Refiners with Minimum Stock Order

Suing Big Oil has been a favorite game in California.

Now, Governor Newsom is trying something different.

He’s proposed a rule for refiners to hold a minimum volume of gasoline.

To avoid price spikes.

Whatever happens, it’s Big Oil’s fault

For Newsom, the oil industry is behind everything bad that happens in California.

The highest gas prices in the country? It’s Big Oil’s fault.

Pollution? Big Oil, obviously.

Now Newsom has accused refiners of profiting from low stocks.

So, he wants to make them maintain a certain amount of fuel.

“Price spikes at the pump are profit spikes for Big Oil,” the California governor said.

“Refiners should be required to plan ahead and backfill supplies to keep prices stable.”

It seems Newsom is unfamiliar with the concept of costs.

He seems to believe refiners don’t input anything into their fuel output.

So, everything’s pure profit, especially when demand exceeds supply.

It’s a simple world in which Newsom lives.

It's not so simple for the rest of us—and especially oil companies still present in California.

Maybe they should follow Chevron’s example.

Why stay where you’re not wanted?

Taxes and green plans

Californians do pay some of the highest gas prices in the U.S.

They also pay some of the highest excise duty taxes on their gas.

They also pay taxes to fund the transition.

These also get slapped on to gas prices.

There’s also the special blending requirement for gas in California.

That costs extra, too.

But sure, blame the refiners and their insatiable appetite for more profits.

Norway Boosts Investments in Oil and Gas

Norway is going to spend a record amount of money on oil and gas this year.

Next year, too.

That would be green-green Norway, which has the most EVs per capita in the world.

Making good use of energy resources

Oil and gas investments in Norway are set to hit $24 billion this year.

They’ll stay at over $22 billion in 2025 as well.

The idea is to keep producing oil and gas for decades to come.

Meanwhile, the country’s sovereign wealth fund divests from Big Oil.

Because transition.

It’s a peculiar case of financial schizophrenia.

The fund is the biggest in the world, and it became the biggest on oil and gas money.

To stay the biggest in the world, it needs to keep receiving oil and gas revenues.

Which can’t happen without oil and gas development.

There’s also that famed standard of living to maintain, too.

So, the Norwegians will keep spending more on oil and gas fields.

But there’s a twist.

The record investment this year won’t go towards record production.

It would be used to cover higher costs.

No one’s immune from inflation.

Green is good, but rich is better

That’s basically Norway’s motto when it comes to energy.

The country has become Europe’s largest single supplier of nat gas after the Nord Stream explosion.

It is also a big oil exporter.

This means money in the bank—and the sovereign wealth fund.

But Norway is also firmly behind the energy transition—on paper.

It’s kind of like Saudi Arabia in this respect.

The transition’s fine but the world still needs oil and gas so we’ll supply them.

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