5/5/25 Oil, Renewables, and Rising Demand: Industry Insights from Cyrus Mojibi

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Monday, May 5th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Manageme instagram: MoneywiseWealthManagement Guest: Cyrus Mojibi, Chief Operating Officer for San Joaquin Refining Company website: www.sjr.com/

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise. Call or text into the show 24/7 at 396-1000.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Here is Money Wise. Money, money, money, money.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway on ESPN Bakersfield, 1230 a.m., 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we're your hosts. I'm Sharad Waite and?

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Sammy Abiyawie.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Sammy, great having you.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I really liked the Garo laugh at the end of the intro.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  I don't know if you caught that or not.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  I caught it. The whole intro got me giggling. It's good stuff. New voices, new everything there. Of course, it's a new era for Money Wise. We are going through an upgrade in some of the services that we use as financial advisors. Most particular, most interesting is our broker dealer.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  This is a big deal for us at Money Wise. In our industry, we don't change broker dealers very frequently. And when we do change broker dealers, a lot of effort and thought goes into it. And that's certainly the case with us. We've been with the same broker dealer now for nearly 10 years or so. And then our broker dealer, who is SCF Securities, was, we really liked them. They were, one of the things we liked about them, they were just up the road headquartered up in Fresno, so they were a valley, a valley firm. But they were a little behind in some of the technologies and services that some of the larger independent broker dealers offered.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  And so sure enough, they were bought out and they were bought out by LPL. And LPL Financial, if you don't know them, they are the nation's largest independent broker dealer. And they service almost, almost 30,000 advisors nationwide. Basically, what a broker dealer does is they, they offer the compliance oversight for registered reps, registered representatives and or, and or investment advisor representatives. And they are basically the ones that can provide the, the services, the technology, that the compliance support. And really can make a big difference for, for a company.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  And so MoneyWise, after doing our due diligence, decided to go ahead and move over to LPL. This was several months ago. So we've been preparing our office for this day for

• 3:14Speaker 00

  Seven, eight months?

• 3:15Speaker 01

  A long time.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  More than that, actually.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was last year, I don't know, mid last year.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Or the third quarter of last year. So, you know, this is, this is something that we're, you know, we're going through a lot of changes right now in terms of our technologies, so we're all kind of getting up to speed here in the offices. But we're very excited about some of the services that we're going to be able to provide to our clients. Most of this kind of goes unseen by our clients because MoneyWise is our, is our, is our business name. That's what, that's what, you know, people know us by.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  People do business with, but now with the technologies, just as simple as just having one, using the MoneyWise app, for instance, and having access to all the accounts, even if you have multiple third-party accounts, like

• 4:04Speaker 00

  So, so we're, we're very excited for that. And some of the other technologies we're going to have access to just from a financial planning standpoint. And how we can help our customers and clients going forward. So stay tuned.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  It requires us to redo all of our disclosures, which is why we have new taglines.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  On the radio show and you know, we're, we're, you know, for better, for worse, where we are. Are all of our communications are screened by, by regulators to make sure that we're not saying anything that's inappropriate or anything that could lead anybody astray, which I, you know, I'm grateful for. I think we shall be grateful for that, those types of regulations. I know regulation in general is, is, is a bad word because it can be, you know, viewed as slowing down, you know, free market capitalism, but, but you, you do need to be, certain things do need to be regulated. Medical coverage, you know, finance, banking, you know, you want some oversight there or things can get weird real quick.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, like 2008.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah. In every other major recession that we've had.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. So the regulations and, and in fact, we, we're going to talk a little bit about regulation in the state about oil and other things with our guest today. So I'm excited for that.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm really excited for our guest coming up. Uh, before we do that, let's talk about some of these headlines. There, there's been a, it's been a busy weekend and of course we're coming off of a really good stretch of winds for the stock market. In fact, today we have major indices down slightly into negative territory. But that snaps a nine day winning streak, which is the longest winning streak that we've had for almost 20 years. For the S and P 500, that's, that's unbelievable. Uh, you would think that, you know, it wasn't that long ago.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  You would think that with all the, the, the, the winds we had in the last two years as far as the S and P. You will think, oh yeah, we had some long stretches of winds, but I guess no.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Nine days is the longest in 20 years?

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think it, you know, what we're, what we, what we were dealing with before this winning streak started was a long streak of uncertainty around, mostly around tariffs and.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  Things are, it sounds like things are settling down a little bit. There's a little bit of openings here and there between United States and China as far as the tariff stock. So I think now it's the, the, the.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  The hitting of the chest or whatever, the pumping of the chest is gonna slow down a little bit.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  They're gonna come back to the table and, because the whole world is kind of like suffering a bit.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I, I think the whole world is tired of it.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Kinda over it. Yeah, some of the tariffs that were, there was getting some information coming from the administration about tariffs recently. It's, they're trying to put a tariff on movies that are made outside of the United States, which I basically started scratching my head. I was like, I gotta, I gotta research this, because I, I don't know of a way that you add a tariff to service. Like a tariff is, isn't, you don't, you don't, I don't know how you would even add a tariff to a movie that's being filmed somewhere else. Right? You, you, you, you have tariffs on physical goods, but I don't know of any tariffs on, on like a service. And plus if you have, if you're just, you have a film crew that's filming somewhere around the world.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  What, what, what is there to tariff? I don't even know what you would tariff.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  I, I, I don't know. I saw that. I was a little bit perplexed, just slightly.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  So I'm, I'm, I wanna know more.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, if, if you have the production company that's maybe importing equipment or props or costumes. Okay, then you've got customs duties, you've got import, you know, import tariffs and things like that that you'd have to deal with, but.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, but if you're filming a, a war zone or a war, a, a clip or whatever, guess what? You're gonna go to a country that mimics.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  That's got it already.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  You, yeah.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  You're not bringing the set back through the airport.

• 7:55Speaker 00

  You know, all the things like most of the, most of the Iraq war movies, people say, oh yeah, it was filmed in Iraq. No, no, it was filmed in Egypt or Morocco or Jordan.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  All those three countries.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  You know, but those countries have those areas that seem like they're in a war zone.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Seriously, I'm sad to say that, but.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  You, you're not gonna go and rebuild the whole set.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  It's already available for you.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  And guess what? They rolled a red carpet for you when you go there, because you create so many jobs and, and help the local economies and stuff, so.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  It's a lot, a lot cheaper.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  And it gives it a little bit of authenticity, in my opinion.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's but yeah, I mean, and and you don't have a you don't have a tariff. Somehow that you might have to pay for it. Going back to the nine day winning streak there. I'm looking at, you know, I'm looking at the history of the S and P 500 and the daily winning streaks going back to 1975. So, you know, in the last 50 years, there have been five times where we had a nine day winning streak. The longest winning streak in the last 50 years was 12 days, 12 trading days. That was back in 1995, and it had a total return of about 4.4%. This recent nine day winning streak had a total return of about 10.25%. That's not bad.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  It's not bad.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  I mean, we we had a lot of loss before then, but that's that's not bad. The most recent nine day winning streak, got to go back to to October of 2024, where we had a six and a half percent total return over that period of time. So this, while this is, you know, certainly one of the longest winning streaks we had. As far as I can tell, going back 50 years, it's the it's the highest total return that we've seen for a nine day.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  This one.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  This one.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  10 point.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  10.25. This is impressive. It's been an impressive run. So, you know, it kind of makes sense that today, at some point, you're going to have to have a breather. The market's taking a breather today, and they're going to be looking ahead to the Federal Reserve's policy meeting that starts tomorrow. They have a two day policy meeting. It'll be tomorrow and then and then after Wednesday, we'll hear from the Fed chair.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  And I doubt that he will cut the rates.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  No, you're you're so right.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm looking at the the jobs. I'm looking at the inflation rate. I'm I was talking to my wife last night about this. I just doubt that he will reduce the rates.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  In fact, I think he will push back against that.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he's not going to increase rates.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  No, but he's not going to reduce them either. I don't think he's going to reduce them.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Right. Looking at the Fed's dot plot, dot plot, is that right? Yeah, it looks like it's the consensus is that rates will remain steady, at least this time around. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if we had a little surprise? Seems like there's never a surprise anymore with the Fed.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think if there is that surprise, I think you might see a reaction in the market that might reignite the winds.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. The other news that happened over the weekend, one of our heroes here at Money Wise, Warren Buffett, the CEO, founder of Berkshire Hathaway, announced his retirement. And this is, I mean, I don't know if it was a huge surprise to too many people. He's 94 years old. And he's been leading the company for over 60 years. So he was just in his early 30s when he started Berkshire Hathaway. He has announced, it was just a few years ago, about four years ago, he already announced who was going to succeed him, a 62-year-old Canadian businessman named Greg Abel. He was named as Buffett's successor back in 2021.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  He's going to take over as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway later this year. And he currently is serving as the vice chairman over its non-insurance operations. And is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which we're going to be talking about energy here in a little bit. That's been a wildly successful branch of Berkshire Hathaway. But this is, this is really unbelievable that Warren Buffett at 94, and he'll remain on the board.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  He's going to be, he's going to remain the chair, correct?

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what I thought.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  It's just like, just one of the most incredible success stories. And widely viewed as one of the best investors on the planet. He has an incredible record in terms of how Berkshire Hathaway has, it's essentially a conglomerate. It's a company that buys up company. So they've got a, you know, a ton of holdings. Some of their big ones would be Burlington Northern, the railroad, Geico.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Geico.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  What's Dairy Queen?

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Mortgage company.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Don't they have a mortgage company?

• 12:55Speaker 01

  They do, yeah.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  Did the market, or did the price of the stock go down a little bit?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  It did. It went down 5% today, which is like, investors are so weird. Like, come on. I mean.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  I mean, you've got, you've got a guy in that position for how many years? 50 years?

• 13:12Speaker 01

  60.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  60 years?

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, that always, even though it's not a great correction, or it's not a big correction, I should say, it's still. If I'm an investor, I'm gonna say, oh yeah, I don't know.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Well, I always like to give out at least one or two of my favorite Warren Buffett quotes. One of my favorite being someone sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. This is a powerful metaphor about the importance of long-term value planning and investing. And another great Warren Buffett quote, "The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect." And that is so true. It's so true. Like.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  You just, you don't have to be super smart. You just need to be, you need to have the right temperament, the right attitude. If you have the right attitude, I mean, you probably know that, you know this for sure from your banking days. You probably scratch your head going, how is this guy a multimillionaire? He's not incredibly bright in terms of intelligent.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  Perseverance, a lot of it, a little bit of risk-taking appetite versus, you know, I call it W2 mentality versus business ownership.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  And those are the two different things that you, you have. This country gives you the ability to be an entrepreneur. If you have the guts to take that, that route.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, or you don't even have to have guts. You just have to have the right temperament and, and you have to have the right attitude. Some people are almost blind to the, like, they know that, what challenges that they face, but that doesn't get to them. Like, it doesn't, like, sink, they don't let it sink in, or they have ways of dealing with it where it doesn't affect them.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Self-belief, that's, that's, that's correct. It's the self-belief in itself, that, that, hey, I am gonna be successful. It's, this depends on me and my, my energy, my attitude and my emotions and how I can manage those. And that's what it comes down to, in my opinion. And the successful people have the temperament to manage all those three.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's, well, well, Godspeed Warren Buffett. Good luck in your semi-retirement at 94. And I'm guessing he's got this succession plan that he has going is going to be probably going to be just fine.

• 15:32Speaker 00

  I think so. I mean, the gentleman has been there with him for 20 years. It's not, it's not somebody that he just scooped up. No, he's well vested in the culture of Warren Buffett's and what he created in the last 60 years. So I doubt that he will make a lot of changes.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Well, let's do this. Take a break. We come back, we're going to be joined by our guest, which we're very excited about. Cyrus Mojibi. He is the Chief Operating Officer for San Joaquin Refining Company. We've got so much to talk to Cyrus about. You're not going to want to miss it. We're Money Wise. We'll be right back.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Are you nearing retirement and currently working with a financial advisor? Are you not sure if you're invested appropriately? Call our offices at 661-847-1000 to sit down with a Money Wise financial advisor for a no obligation assessment.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Thanks for that, Stephen. Great intro. We're Money Wise. Welcome back to the show. I'm Sharad Waite, your host, along with Sammy Abiyawi. And we are joined today by our guest Cyrus Mojibi. He is the Chief Operating Officer for the San Joaquin Refining Company. If you don't know about San Joaquin Refining Company, well, there's a great time to learn.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  It's been around for a long time, since 1969. And this is exciting to actually have somebody on the show that we could, we could talk to about this, you know, just refining in general and oil and energy in our, in our Maldives. So welcome Cyrus. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me.

• 17:01Speaker 03

  I appreciate it.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  So, you know, obviously, it's no surprise to us that Kern County is not only the largest oil-producing county in the valley, but we're also the largest oil-producing county in all of California. But it seems as though California has been battling against our ability to not only produce oil, but especially refine oil. So, what can you tell us? What's the state of the business?

• 17:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would say that the state of the business is all three elements of it are really under fire from regulations. So, just for jargon's sake, you know, there's three forms of oil production or oil activity, right? Upstream, midstream, and downstream. I'll just describe them really quick.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Upstream is sort of the extraction of the raw hydrocarbon from the ground. That's what we do mainly here in Kern County. We're 77% of the state's oil production. Midstream is the infrastructure to get it, wholesale it, or get it to refiners. That's pipelines, tanks, rail cars, things like that.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  And then downstream is the refining of it or distribution into a gas station, natural gas pipeline, something like that.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:10Speaker 03

  All three have challenges. All three of those challenges are really regulatory-based. So, again, yeah, fighting sort of the battle against the state of California on all fronts.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with the Rosedale Refinery. I don't even know what it's called now, but it's gone through so many different hands. It's like, you know, they just declared bankruptcy, you know, a few weeks ago. It seems like everybody that's tried to refine, at least in that location, has been challenged.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, correct. So, since I've been in the business, that was Shell.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Flying J, Alon, Delic. I'm sure I'm missing something there.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Now, it's run as a renewable fuels refinery, Global Clean Energy.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  And I'm sure I've read the same news you guys have, which is that they filed for reorganization.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. So, talk about San Joaquin Refinery. It's, you know, what's the history there and what happens there?

• 19:10Speaker 03

  So, San Joaquin Refining is unique compared to what we'll probably talk mostly about today. I think what we'll talk about a lot today is combustible fuels refineries, right? Gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel. San Joaquin Refining is more of a, I almost call it a hybrid between a refinery and a chemical company. I like to brand us sort of as an ingredient company. Everything we make, with the exception of a little bit of diesel fuel, goes into further processing, further manufacturing. So it's somebody else's raw material, right?

• 19:38Speaker 01

  I see.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  Someone else's ingredient.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what are some of these? What are some of these products?

• 19:44Speaker 03

  So we make lube oils, ink oils. Our prime product is transformer oil. We're the second largest producer of transformer oil in the United States.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Is the oil that actually goes in the electrical transformers?

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Correct. So if you're staring at a power pole, you see the gray box on it. Or if you're looking at a pad mounted transformer, you'll see inside those transformers, there'll be between eight and say 30 gallons of transformer oil. What that does is helps improve the conductivity and lubricity, cool down the temperature, helps the flow of electricity through the power lines. In fact, it's necessary for it, so.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  This is, we have Chad Hathaway on this show regularly. He, we geek out about oil and gas production. And he's just a, he's just a cheerleader for the industry, you know, in general. And he always brings up all of these different products that people don't realize. They think, when they think of oil or gas, they just think of your car fuel almost always, you know?

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Right. So combustible fuels is typically what people think of. And really, that's what the war is being waged on. But, you know, they're chopping us off at the knees by, by going to war against the typical combustible fuels refiners.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Does that affect you guys as well? Does that affect San Wicky Refinery as well?

• 20:55Speaker 03

  It does. Now, we're carved out of certain rules, but for the most part, again, going back to the upstream, midstream and downstream elements of it. You know, one of the ways they've really waged war on the big refiners is to just really try to hurt the upstream. So they're not issuing any permits. They're not, Caljam, formerly Dogger, really is doing nothing to help people do drill workovers and rig workovers and increase production. Yeah.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  And that's still the case today.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  That's still the case, yeah. I think there's, you know, a couple of years ago, there's over 2,000 permits issued. I think this year, there's been, I want to say 25 or something like that. So it's a significantly smaller number.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  So to me, and why I was interested in having Cyrus today is to talk about all of this, but also talk about the economic impact of some of the regulations that the state. Is is is is taking steps to implement. And and I heard what what triggered me personally is another potential closure of a facility. I don't know if it was Tesoro.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Uh, Benicia, Valero.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  Valero, that's right. So when I read that and maybe losing 25% of our refining capacity in the state while we're importing oil to the great state of California, I want to just have you on and just talk about this. How do you feel? What can we do to maybe remedy that as a community, as business owners, as as just state residents?

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Sure. Yeah, well, well, so first of all, let me say one thing. I knew we would talk a lot about the Benicia refinery and I just want to give real quick a shout out to the first responders. There's a fire there right now.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Right now.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  That happened this morning.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  I don't know if it's still burning, but you know, we call the true four letter F word in the refining business, fire.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, no kidding.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  You know, just want to say, you know, uh, Godspeed to the first responders and obviously employees. That's obviously the scariest thing for anybody in the oil business is to deal fire.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  So there is something happening there now and that might speed up the impact of whatever they talked about in terms of shutting down, I think this time next year.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a it's really an existential crisis, right? I mean, you're talking about between that and Philip shutting down down south. You're talking about up to 20% of the state's gasoline supply. And we're already reliant on importing majority of our gasoline or majority of our crude oil. Now we're going to be implementing or importing gasoline as well, even more so than we do.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  I'm I'm not as involved in oil with the exception going to the pump and paying and putting gas in my car. It just doesn't make sense to me that we're importing oil while we can produce it here in the state of California. Now, while we're talking about our being on the cutting edge of of of renewables and what have you, I think there's a process for us to wean off the oil, not just this abrupt. Cut that the regulators in Sacramento is trying to input. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I completely agree with you. So I'm a big proponent of renewable energy where it makes sense. I think it's smart. It's silly to think we would never innovate away from any existing technology and any new technology. At some point, I think in our lifetimes, someone will crack the, we'll figure out cold fusion, right? And it'll be, it'll change our lives forever. It'll be, you know, sort of an endless opportunity, boundless energy that will give us the, you know, ability to fuel and power everything we want in a clean state. But you can't just say, oh, I'm going to shut everything down in the meantime and just wait for that to happen. You have to let it happen first. It has to happen naturally, right?

• 24:36Speaker 03

  And so I think that it's important for people to realize that we still refine and consume more oil per day than we did two years ago. It's not like we're weaning off it. We're using more than ever. And as you talk about other industries, especially supercomputing, AI, quantum computing, whatever you want to call it, that requires an insane amount of energy that is going to only increase our need for energy consumption here in California.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems as all the policies are just addressing more of the supply side, not the demand. The demand just continues to increase. I think we've seen nothing but a steady, a steady increase over the years of, of demand. There was a little, I think a little drawback maybe during COVID, but that was for whatever, you know, we were shut down. But it's every, it's just we're using more and more fuel.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  As time goes on.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's important to note, you know, we still, I think roughly 93% of all the fuel we consume in California is, falls in that combustible fuel category. So gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel. So during COVID, obviously, we were driving less, flying less, the less trucks were on the road. So it seemed natural you would have a declination in that. But now, yeah, we're consuming more than ever.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  So as, I love numbers and I love, you know, economic topics. And to me, Oil equates to high paying jobs. As a banker, as an ex banker, a lot of the clients were not oil producers or people that are actually, you know, drilling wells, but they were people that were servicing the wells. So there's a statistic that I read for every, you know, job in a refinery, there's three jobs, ancillary jobs in the oil fields or service, and those jobs have been just declining. We're talking about high paying jobs that create a lot of taxes for the, for the county, especially for Kern County. Are you, how is that impact? How, how is that, how do you see that, Cyrus?

• 26:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. So you're exactly right. I, I think the number is closer to four to five job, ancillary jobs for every job we have at our refinery. So I have about a hundred and forty-six employees right now, and I think we create somewhere around six hundred jobs. Ancillary jobs that are come as a result of, um, everything that has to, has to come into place for a barrel of oil to come into San Joaquin Refining, be refined and be sent out as a finished product. And those are high paying jobs. And they're high paying, blue collar jobs, right? So you don't have to go to a fancy college and have a fancy degree. You can make eighty to a hundred thousand dollars a year if you work hard. And that's all going to go away. And I think people are looking for the alternative markets to that, and I don't know that one exists.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Yet. Like to your point earlier, it does not exist yet. Maybe down the line with all the stuff, or maybe, what, what do you call it? Fusion?

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, cold fusion.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Whatever. Yeah. It's, but we don't have it today.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  No.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  But instead, we're losing jobs to other states.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  And, and, and tax revenue and, and the economic downfall that that creates.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  Housing, um, other industries, uh, healthcare. A lot of the impact is so negative, in my opinion, that we probably need to reconsider the policies. And I know you've been fighting for that. So, uh, uh, talk, talk to us a little bit more, unless you want to go into

• 27:55Speaker 01

  No, no, no, we're gonna skip the break, cause, cause I would just want to keep it going. We're joined by Cyrus Mojibi. He is the Chief Operating Officer for San Joaquin Refining Company. So there are, there's only a handful of refiners

• 28:07Speaker 01

  In the state and Sam Lake in refinery in particularly is is is a little bit different. As you said, it's not very little is going to transportation fuels. It's going to other other uses. So is there a how is this? I guess I'm I'm curious. I see I see just doom and gloom for our state in terms of the the business environment for refiners. Is it? Do you see like is business going well? Do you see it declining and or just like what's going to happen? Are are I'm not sure what your production is of it. How do you how?

• 28:51Speaker 01

  How Sam Lake in refinery compares to maybe other refiners? And like it seems like they're all closing up shot or, you know, shutting things down. How is how are things there?

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, just to give you some scale. So we refine roughly 14,000 barrels a day. The Valero Benicia refinery we were discussing, and I'm sure we'll discuss more, is 160,000. So we are 140,000, so 10 times the size.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  And that's typical for a specialty sort of boutique refinery versus one more focused on combustible fuels.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  And so, yeah, I mean, the challenges certainly are not getting any easier now. As your competition goes out of business, you know, typically there will be some elements, some good elements potentially for us. It might be easier for us to find crude oil. You know, we might be a more advantageous spot for crude oil producers to try to place their raw material with. But overall, for the economy, it's terrible, right? We can't afford to lose 20% of the state's gasoline supply. You know, everyone a lot of people ask me, when will people wake up and start to fight back against this, especially on sort of the political side and regulatory side? And well, I think we're not that far away because if this goes the way it over the next

• 30:10Speaker 03

  couple of years that it's projected to, I think we'll be paying $7 to $8 a gallon at the pump.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  That'll get people's attention that I. I've argued that too. I said, people will wake up when they're paying

• 30:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  a lot for gas.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  And, but, but I don't know when, it doesn't seem like that, like we've seen that quite yet. And then, you know, why is there, so there's not a, there's no, there's no investors that are coming in and saying, hey, let's start a refinery. You know, this is a great business. And I'm scratching my head as well. At some point, it seems like it will be.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  So, it doesn't matter how much money you get. Elon Musk could step in here tomorrow and say, I'm going to build another San Joaquin refining or another Valero in California, and there's no chance it would happen. Not only wouldn't it happen in California, I don't think it happens in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada,

• 31:06Speaker 03

  New Mexico, Colorado.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Too much regulation, too many hurdles, regulatory hurdles mostly.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  And a lot of these west coast states have followed this sort of regulatory blueprint that California has and has made it impossible. Not even if you could get over the regulatory hurdles, I just don't think they would give you a permit. You could have a brownfield site ready to go right now, the perfect plans to design a great refinery, and I don't think you would get a permit for it. But let's just say hypothetically, you could. The other problem is, you know, you guys are good business people, you guys are smart businessmen. When you build out a business, you do it based on a return on investment, right? And you know, you need a number of years to do that. When you're being told by the people in power in the state that they don't want you here, that they're actively trying to get rid of you. And they, they give you a man, they give the, themselves a mandate through laws to be done with you by,

• 31:55Speaker 03

  you know, if it's a 10-year ROI and you've got six years left on that plan, you're not building the place.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  And I think that goes to a lot of the problems with some of the infrastructure issues we have. I think that goes in problem with some of the oil production is that people aren't going to soak, people aren't going to put the capex required into these facilities. We have old infrastructure, old oil infrastructure here in the state. But nobody's going to go commit the money if they're being told by the powers that be that they don't want them here.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  There needs to be a fundamental shift. And, and honestly, I think that this news over the last few weeks. You know, sometimes you have to hit rock bottom.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  And I, and I think this might be it because you've already seen, I've already heard some state democratic lawmakers start to sort of back off on that, on the, you know, anti-oil rhetoric because they're starting to say, oh, wait. Okay. We didn't actually think everybody'd go out of business. You know, we thought you'd just keep paying all these extra regulatory fees and paying all these fines. Off on a tangent, but I think, I think Valero and Benish, I think they announced they paid the county eighty-one million dollars last year in, in environmental fees.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Unbelievable.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  It's an insane amount of money.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And it, it's, it, it just seems, I, I, I think again, our politicians are under the impression that just like, we just need to get rid of transportation fuels. Let's move every, everything to, you know, electronic vehicles, electric vehicles, and we'll just go all full electric, not understanding that that, that's, that's impossible. Like the amount of oil that goes into just making a car, an electric vehicle is, is enormous. And then you also have other uses like, like the transformer oil and other, other medicine.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  We, we, we talked about infrastructure. You know, you mentioned infrastructure. The infrastructure of the state, to my knowledge, is paid for through some taxes paid at the pump or, or maybe a portion of it.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  SP1, yep.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  Right? So when we stop you paying for these taxes at the pump, how are we going to finance this large infrastructure in this state, especially it's degrading. It's been degrading for the last thirty, forty years.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  You're right. Yep. The gas tax passed years and years ago to, to California's credit. And I don't often give the state a lot of credit when it comes to politics.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  To their credit, they have put a lot of that gas tax money towards infrastructure projects. And we've seen a lot of that work come as a result of that. But yeah, as that dries up. You know, where's that money going to come from? It has to come from somewhere. You talked about, okay, so let's just say every car is an EV. Well, what kind of road are they driving on?

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  We sell paving asphalt.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:38Speaker 03

  You know, what are the roads made of? Sure, they can be made of concrete, but it's more expensive.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  And it's got its own environmental challenges.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Carbon impact, yeah. Yeah, it, yeah, it's, I know, just anytime I talk to anybody who's in the industry, you know, that, where there's, there, there, there's boots on the ground. I'm always feel like I'm grasping for some glimmer of hope.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Of some change that might be happening. And, and, and I have yet to find it. You know, it always just seems so, like you said, I think you nailed it where you said, there has to be a fundamental shift among the population. You know, of, of California where, you know, where they're talking to, to their representatives in Sacramento. Because the only thing that's gonna, I think, get them talking again, it comes down to the $10 a gallon gas.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Or I, or, you know, we have, start, start to have such shortages that people, you know.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Long lines at the pump.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  1979, 1978.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  Exactly. So that, I think that's the, you know, people are gonna pay eight or nine dollars a gallon. They're just gonna do it.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  The problem's gonna be when you go to get gasoline and you're, the first three stations you stop at are all out of fuel.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  That's when you're gonna start to panic. And that's when, as we saw with COVID and the whole toilet paper thing. Once people start panicking, then they, they overdo it and, and then things really escalate out of control.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  You see pitchforks on the street.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Exactly. And so, uh, you know, there's two different ways people tend to vote. One's with their feet, right? And we've seen a lot of people flee California as a result of that. And the other is when it impacts their wallets and their purses. And I think that's what you're gonna see is, uh, price points that start to get people to call their legislature.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  Maybe, maybe change their voting principles a little bit, uh, demand certain policies be either changed or toned down so that the industries can still exist.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Now, we are in a bit of an island here in Kern County. What's your experience been just being in business here in Kern County?

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love doing business in Kern County. I think for the most part, we do a really good job. Now, it's not perfect and it is still governed by the state and so you're, they're still subject to the state requirements. Uh, it's great that we have the advocates we do. Um, I think that that's very important, but, um, again, when you're in the state of California, you're still prone to the laws passed by it and subject to the, you know, really being limited in the power that the local government can wield over the state.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, and you see there's 160 employees roughly at San Joaquin. Uh, there's other refiners also in the, in the county, a couple more.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's Kern Energy, there's Global Clean Energy.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So three.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Um, and where, where does San Joaquin get its oil from?

• 37:27Speaker 03

  So we get, everything we produce here is, at San Joaquin Refining is, is local.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  So it's, um,

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Kern heavy crude?

• 37:34Speaker 03

  Kern heavy crude, almost all of it. Now, we take some from areas out of town. For the most part, we buy, uh, from one particular field that comes straight by pipeline directly to us.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  Now, over, over the last few years, that's changed a little bit and we're buying a little bit more truck crude. Um, and I think that that's just sort of a change in market dynamics more than anything.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  But I, I like to describe us, you know, from an environmental standpoint, if you actually took the overall carbon footprint of San Joaquin Refining, it's gotta be one of the lowest carbon footprints in the entire country. You know, the oil comes from within typically 10 miles of the refinery.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 38:12Speaker 03

  It goes into, for the most part, a pipeline, not a truck that's driving a combustible engine. It gets refined within 45 days and out as a finished product after that. So I call it a bit of a farm-to-table approach, but. Those people don't like that.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Get your fresh oil.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  I, I, go ahead, sorry.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, contrasting to that, like you said, our, we are an energy island in California, right? We're not connected to the Gulf Coast, we're not connected to Cushing, Oklahoma. So the majority of our oil, 80% of it has to come by, you know, either from Alaska North Slope crude or mainly by foreign imports.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Boats.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  And so these, these crude barges are coming from countries like Venezuela where they're burning the absolute worst possible fuel you can imagine.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  Out in the open sea. And then as they get to about 20 miles from the coast, they have to switch to marine diesel or diesel number two for the last 20 miles or so. But if you took a true carbon footprint analysis of a barrel of oil produced here locally versus one that comes from anywhere around the world on a barge and then through, you know, combustible fuels refinery and into an engine and then burned off an engine, it's not even close.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  It's even more madness when you, when you consider where that oil's being extracted from, you know, sensitive environmental ecosystems.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  Jungles.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  And, and, you know, terrible human rights.

• 39:37Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  In California, we have some of the strictest environmental laws on the planet, you know, or it's.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  And that's what gets me upset truly is when we see the, our, our imports, what? I read somewhere 70% of our consumption in the state.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  Is, is, is import.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Is import, yep. While we, we're stopping the creation of jobs here in this, in this state that could help and have an economic impact with, with, a huge economic impact.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  And we're stopping those jobs because the state legislators are saying we're doing it, it's too dirty of a job, it's too, it's too polluting when, do you think Venezuela cares about the way they, they operate a heater or a boiler or a dehydration unit? Of course not.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  We, like you said, we are governed by the strictest rules in the state, in the country, and we govern the country's governed by the strictest rules in the world.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  We do it cleaner than anybody, so to take it away and give it to a foreign country costs us jobs here and. Have a bigger carbon footprint is just such backwards thinking. It's it's total NIMBY thinking, right? Not in my backyard. They just don't want it done here. They don't care. They'll turn a blind eye anywhere else.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  And and it and it comes down to, again, a lot of political polarization where you have two sides barking at each other instead of having a conversation, you know, about about about the issues and and carbon fuels has just been automatically put to one side of the argument. And I'm hopeful for a day when there's more, if any place could do it, California should be able to do it. Kern County, actually, I think, is the premier spot for it to happen in the in the country where you can actually have a sensible dialogue between the carbon fuels industry and and us people, you know, that live here. And I'm hopeful that someday that we'll get there. Cyrus, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate

• 41:32Speaker 01

  it. Super informative. You know, great, great information. And thank you for taking the time. I know you got to be busy. There's the chief operating officer for Sam Lakeen Refining Company. That's Cyrus Mojib. Thank you.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  It's been a pleasure.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  We'll be right back after this break.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  Need to get your financial fix on the go? If so, subscribe to the Money Wise Podcast and catch up on all past shows whenever.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Money Wise Show. I'm Sharad. That's Sammy. We're your hosts. Want to thank Cyrus Mojib. That was a great interview.

• 42:06Speaker 00

  Very, very good. I want to have him back again after some time just to talk. It's it's amazing. I didn't cover nearly enough what I wanted to cover personally.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Well, you should have spoke up.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, why?

• 42:21Speaker 00

  There's just so much information.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's just, it's a great local business. And I'm just fascinated by the whole by the whole thing. And you have, it's one of those businesses that really does bring a value add, especially when, you know, you consider where where this oil is going, where it's coming from. It's like, one of our cool, one of those really cool local businesses.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  That's really doing some things. OGB family has done so much here in the valley.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  I was just telling you before we came back, his dad was a class act, just may he rest in peace, class act.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So Sammy, this is kind of interesting news coming out of the Bay Area. No surprise that some of the most expensive real estate on the planet is up there. You know that when you have a, you know, when you're looking to qualify for financial aid or grants or, you know, public benefits, that the information that the, that the, a lot of these government entities use is based off of where they're located. So your, your cost of living of wherever you're located. So I found it fascinating that there are three or four counties up in Northern County, four Bay Area counties,

• 43:40Speaker 01

  that all have basically six-figure thresholds to still qualify to being low to moderate income.

• 43:49Speaker 00

  Six figures.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Six figures. So, you know, Marin County, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara, their low income limit for a single-person household is over six, over a hundred thousand dollars.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  And what do you think the largest expense for these people is?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Housing.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Housing.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  It's gotta be.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna guess.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  Housing is probably the, the, the largest expense, so.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Can you imagine? So Sammy, you're essentially, you know, in, in Santa Clara County, hundred, you can make a hundred and eleven thousand dollars and you're still in the low-income benchmark for, for a single person.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  Hundred, how much?

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Hundred and eleven.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  That's just, that's ridiculous.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so basically you, you, you're, you're poor if you live in Santa Clara County and you, and you make a hundred and eleven thousand dollars. You make a hundred and eleven thousand dollars in Bakersfield, you're definitely not poor.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Now, we're, I mean, hundred and eleven thousand, I don't know how much they pay people in the healthcare, for instance, nurses and, and others. Come to Bakersfield. We need you here.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  And guess what? You got a big old house with a backyard.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  And a swimming pool.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yes. That, that, but in all fairness, a hundred, so a hundred and eleven thousand dollars. You're, you're, to qualify for a mortgage, it has to, it can't be more than thirty percent, right? Of your, of your, of your annual income. So let's call it thirty-three, thirty, let's call it thirty-three thousand dollars a year. So that means you'd have to find a home where your payment was less than thirty-three thousand dollars a year.

• 45:27Speaker 00

  Fear not, because this state will give you twenty percent of your down payment.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, down payment shouldn't be the problem.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Down payment won't be the problem. It's, it's being able to afford that monthly payment.

• 45:37Speaker 00

  That's, I'm, I'm, I'm being facetious. I'm sorry. It, it's just, it just doesn't make sense.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Well, even in Bakersfield, though, that means you'd have to have a mortgage payment of under three thousand dollars a month. That means you'd have, I don't, I think our median home prices are four hundred thousand.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Right now.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  So that's, I'm doing just quick math in my head. That's, I think your payment's gonna be.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  Thirty-five hundred bucks.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Thirty-five, yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  Because the principal, if you divide the principal over thirty years, then you add the interest. Yeah, you're looking at thirty-five hundred dollars a month.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Right. So that means you could make a hundred and eleven thousand dollars also in Bakersfield. You may still not be able to afford, if you're by yourself and that's your only income, you, you likely are gonna have to find a home that's at least well below the median cost. Which, you know, if you're getting a home that's below the median price.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  Correct. You're gonna get an entry level, you're gonna get a twelve hundred to fourteen hundred square foot house. You might not get the twelve thousand square foot lot, but you will get a five thousand square foot lot.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  You know, and you can pay two hundred seventy-five, three hundred twenty-five thousand dollars for that.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Yes. And it, yeah, so it might not be in the exact place that you want and that, but I guess it is still doable. I guarantee you're not gonna buy a house in San Francisco on a hundred and eleven thousand dollars a year.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  Well, unless you're doing some side hustle.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Like the couple in Utah?

• 46:54Speaker 00

  That's, yeah, that's exactly where my mind was going. Yes, the side hustle.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  We should have asked Cyrus about this. Actually brought this article because I wanted to ask Cyrus his opinion about this Utah couple.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Well, he didn't wanna talk about his business plan. That's the future.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Smuggle oil from Mexico.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Unbelievable. So Utah couple has been accused of money laundering and smuggling oil across the border from Mexico. They were arrested just a couple of weeks ago by the US Marshals. This is, this is, this is crazy. Essentially, it's about, they, they value the oil at about $300 million that the family's been accused of moving across the border. Over 2,800 shipments of oil from Mexico that they knew were illegal. I mean, that's when you know things are crazy. When you're, when you're, when you're smuggling, you know, $300 million worth of oil, crude oil from Mexico?

• 47:47Speaker 00

  How long have they done it is my question. Second thing, how did they do it?

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:51Speaker 00

  What is it? Trucks? Pipeline? What is it?

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Had to be on trains or trucks.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  Tunnels underneath, you know, from San Diego to Tijuana? I want to know. I mean, not, not for personal reason. I just want to know.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  I do too. Like, logistically, how does this even, like, how is this possible? It wasn't just the couples that were, what were indicted, including their kids. It looks like there are, near the, on the border, there are terminals in Hondo, Texas, near the Mexican border. There's a Río terminals in Rio, Hondo, Texas. And the raid apparently involved, there's some outlet, you know, outlets, oil outlets, I guess, down there that, that, still, it just seems so, like, how is that ever going to end well when you're smuggling crude oil?

• 48:39Speaker 00

  The $100 million, that sounds like a lot of prison time. If indicted, of course.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Yeah, definitely.

• 48:47Speaker 00

  Innocent until proven guilty.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then that, you know, they're going to get them on multiple counts of, for, I'm sure, several things, but just, you know, money laundering.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  And now you got all this, you got $300 million worth of illegal money, and then you're gonna, you gotta launder it. And apparently, they have a $9.1 million home in Sandy, Utah, just outside of Salt Lake City.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  I saw that picture. I saw that picture.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  It's insane.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  I mean,

• 49:13Speaker 01

  26,000 square feet.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  How did they come up with the idea?

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Of the house?

• 49:17Speaker 00

  No, of smuggling.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  I know. I know.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  They're watching a little too much TV.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  And, yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  It must be connected to some type of, of illegal thing, you know, in the other side, Mexico.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. They knew somebody over there, and they're like, just, I don't know, skimming off? I don't know.

• 49:37Speaker 00

  That's just, just...

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Don't do that, people. There's your money wise advice. Don't launder money. Don't smuggle in illegally into the country goods and then try to launder the money.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  There's other ways to invest. Don't be a money wise guy.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  You don't, you don't need to do that. Trust me. There's easier ways to make money and we'll avoid prison time while you're at it.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Want to remind all of our listeners, if you missed any of this or past programs, you can go subscribe to the Money Wise Podcast, commercial free, on all podcast platforms, including iTunes, Apple, Spotify, you name it. We will be back tomorrow, but in the meantime, remember these three things. Be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.

• 50:24Speaker 04

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.