Sable Offshore plans to complete pipeline repair work in Gaviota State Park by the end of the month

GAVIOTA, Calif. – Following an exemption last week allowing pipeline repair work at Gaviota State Park, Sable Offshore and its wholly-owned subsidiary Pacific Pipeline Company are nearing the end of construction work still required before restarting oil production in Santa Barbara County.

According to an April declaration added to a lawsuit filed in Santa Barbara County Superior Court by Sable Offshore against the California Coastal Commission earlier this year, the only remaining construction work required before restarting oil production at the Santa Ynez Unit are 22 onshore pipeline anomaly sites.

The image below, from an informational slide in an investor presentation by Sable Offshore courtesy of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, shows all of the assets purchased by the Houston-based company from ExxonMobil in February of 2024, collectively referred to as the Santa Ynez Unit.

Of those 22 detected pipeline anomalies that still require repair work, 18 are within Gaviota State Park, shown as the blue circles on the left side of the image below along Line 325a which is the green line.

The California Department of Parks and Recreation issued a notice of exemption regarding access to the pipeline for repair work within the state park on May 9, 2025, and the areas scheduled for pipeline work are already under a temporary closure until Friday, May 30.

The image below, courtesy of the California Department of Parks and Recreation, shows the current closure area shaded in red and the Gaviota State Park boundaries as the green lines with Highway 101 running through the state-managed lands.

In response to Your News Channel's inquiries, the California Department of Parks and Recreation confirmed that pipeline repair work has already started in Gaviota State Park.

Sable Offshore detailed that access to the four other outstanding repair sites along line 324 -formerly known as Line 901 which ruptured and caused the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill- were also already granted by the Land Trust for the County of Santa Barbara.

Altogether, the work on pipeline anomalies was estimated to take about six weeks shared Sable Offshore in its court filings on April 17 of this year making the necessary repair work's expected completion at the end of May.