Alarm broke out as online posts warned that California has only six weeks of oil left.
“According to testimony by experts during the State Energy Commission hearing today at the Capitol in Sacramento, California only has ‘enough’ oil and gas supply to meet demand for the next six weeks,” said one May 6 X post. “There is no plan in place to supply more oil to California if the Straight of Hormuz (sic) does not re-open in the time, allowing oil tankers to deliver to #California, and therefore prices are expected to spike even higher.”
Some news outlets also covered the testimony, amplifying this timeline. The coverage came days after news reports that the last tanker had arrived at the port of Long Beach, California. The tanker had traveled from the Middle East before Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The testimony referencing the six-week timeline was real; it was given by Siva Gunda, the member of the California Energy Commission whose duties include overseeing energy assessments, to a May 5 oversight hearing of the California Assembly’s Utilities and Energy Committee.
But the X post left out context. Gunda did not mean the gasoline supply would drop to zero at the six-week mark — it’s simply the timeline by which experts can forecast with the most certainty.
Every day brings the opportunity for more shipments to arrive and more crude oil to be refined into gasoline. As a result, the six-week window can be extended day by day, indefinitely.
It’s a “constantly rolling” period, said Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis for the gasoline price tracker GasBuddy.
Niki Woodard, a California Energy Commission spokesperson, told PolitiFact that the six-week time frame is analogous to weather forecasts, which become unreliable more than 10 days out. “The six-week forecast is what we can reliably predict,” she said.
During the hearing, the commission released data showing that the amount of California’s gasoline supply is “within historical range.” This measurement includes gasoline that is already in the state; projected crude oil imports during that period, including those from regions other than the Middle East; and projected refinery capacity.
Woodard told PolitiFact that the forecast shows that the state’s diesel and gasoline inventory remains “sufficient to cover roughly four to six weeks of demand under normal operating conditions, assuming no major unplanned outages.”
Woodard also said the commission “is working closely with refiners, and we are aware that they are identifying and using alternate routes and sources of crude. California refiners continue to receive shipments of crude oil.”
Collectively, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — countries that could be affected by Iran war-related blockages — accounted for about 29% of California’s foreign oil imports in 2025. Most of the rest came from locales where the stability of the supply chain is not directly affected by the war, including Canada and several South American countries.
In addition, about 40% of California’s oil comes from in-state or Alaska. Shipments from California and Alaska shouldn’t be affected by the war, either.
Two other panelists at the hearing — Severin Borenstein, a business administration and public policy professor at the University of California-Berkeley, and Skip York, a fellow in energy and global oil at Rice University’s Center for Energy Studies — cautioned against misinterpreting the six-week comment.
Gunda “was not referring to state inventory levels or production of gasoline at California refineries,” York told PolitiFact. “It was just simply that data the commission collects currently gives them a six-week view of inbound marine vessels.” It does not mean that supplies will zero out at the end of six weeks, he said.
That said, the near-term supply could be pricey.
Already, a gallon of gasoline in California costs $6.17, well above the (also elevated) $4.56 national average, according to the Automobile Association of America.
Over the next six weeks, California will “continue to have an adequate supply of oil — it will just be more expensive,” said Hugh Daigle, a University of Texas-Austin petroleum and geosystems engineering professor. “I think a better framing would be to say that consumers can expect to see prices really start increasing in about six weeks.”
Gunda said much the same at the hearing. “Based on what we’re hearing from the industry, the pricing will move molecules to California, but it will come at a price, and that’s something we need to closely watch,” he said.
Our ruling
An X post said, “California only has ‘enough’ oil and gas supply to meet demand for the next six weeks.”
A California energy official said May 5 that California’s current and projected gasoline supply — barring unexpected developments — is sufficient to cover consumer needs for the next six weeks. That accounts for on-hand gasoline, crude oil in transit, and refiners’ capacity to turn that crude into gasoline once it arrives.
This doesn’t mean that the supply will drop to zero in six weeks. Six weeks is how far out officials confidently make forecasts. Every additional day can bring additional shipments and deliveries that extend the six-week availability window forward, potentially indefinitely.
We rate this statement False.
