Two of the country’s largest oil refiners posted new 52-week highs Tuesday, even as both saw picket lines outside their plant gates. Tesoro Corp. (NYSE: TSO) has picketers outside three of its refineries in Washington and California, and Marathon Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: MPC) has picketers outside its Kentucky refinery.

Over the weekend more than 1,400 United Steelworkers Union members at the BP PLC (NYSE: BP) refineries in Whiting, Ind., and Toledo, Ohio, joined the 3,800 Steelworkers who went out on strike earlier last week. Other refiners and processors hit by the strike are Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE: RDS-A) and LyondellBasell Industries N.V. (NYSE: LYB). Shell is the lead company negotiating with the Steelworkers under the National Oil Bargaining Program.

Marathon reported fourth-quarter earnings last week that blew by estimates. Refining and marketing income rose by $45 million, but the big boost came from its Speedway retail operations, where income jumped $190 million year-over-year. Pipeline income rose by $11 million as well, but the company noted that refining and market income benefited to the tune of $240 million from the last-in, first-out (LIFO) accounting effect.

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Tesoro is scheduled to report earnings on Wednesday and analysts are expecting earnings per share of $1.50 on revenues of $8.90 billion, compared with year-ago fourth quarter results of $0.04 in earnings per share and $10.12 billion in revenues. Tesoro also owns and operates retail outlets and it, too, could easily blow past estimates.

Refining margins have been closing even though the price of crude has dropped so far in the past six months. Having union workers out on strike for a time will help the refiners beef up their margins, at least for a while. When the strike started, refiners said they would use skeleton crews of managers to keep the refineries operating.

Because refiners would be winding down operations now to go into maintenance and turnaround at this time of year anyway, refiners are probably not shedding any tears because the union selected this time to walkout. In a little over six weeks, the first quarter of 2015 will be over. Unless the Steelworkers choose to strike all the refineries where they represent workers, the refiners are probably going to drag their feet on settling with the union. It keeps costs low and output would be throttled anyway.

Tesoro’s shares traded at a new 52-week high of $89.18, before pulling back a bit to trade at $87.85 in the mid-afternoon on Tuesday. The stock’s 52-week low is $47.03.

Marathon’s stock traded at a new high of $101.13 before pulling back to $100.80. The 52-week low on the stock is $74.64.

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