Sable Offshore’s plans to restart oil production cleared two key regulatory hurdles this week
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. – Sable Offshore's attempts to restart oil production in Santa Barbara County received two key updates from County and Federal regulators this week.
On Wednesday, the County of Santa Barbara's Planning and Development Department confirmed that four Zoning Clearance applications for anomaly repair work on pipelines 324 and 325a are authorized under existing permits in a letter to Sable Offshore.
Pipeline 324, formerly known as Line 901, previously ruptured causing the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill, which impacted 150 miles of California coast, destroying thousands of acres of shoreline habitats.
The County stated in Wednesday's letter that their confirmation of properly permitted pipeline work was not an exemption to future permitting requirements nor a decision on a Coastal Development Permit required by the California Coastal Commission, but that no further actions were required by the County regarding the work.
In a separate letter from the County of Santa Barbara sent to the California Coastal Commission also on Feb. 12, 2025, the County informed the state agency that the stopped pipeline work was authorized under current permits and that the County would waive objections to a consolidated Coastal Development Permit for Sable Offshore's restoration work.
This is the first time that the County of Santa Barbara has been asked by the California Coastal Commission to agree to a consolidated Coastal Development Permit for Sable's existing permitted work on the pipelines explained Santa Barbara County in response to Your News Channel's inquiries.
In a separate decision this week, the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Administration informed Sable Offshore that the federal agency did not object to the California Office of State Fire Marshal's approval of state safety waivers regarding cathodic protection and seam weld corrosion on the same pipelines issued in December of 2024 detailed an 8K filing by Sable Offshore with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
That safety waiver approval still requires compliance with over 60 conditions including that the pipeline have a hydrostatic test performed before putting the pipeline into operation, ultrasonic thickness and crack detection tests be conducted within seven days of initial steady state operations, and annual reassessments of the pipeline's integrity.
On Sep. 27, 2024, the California Coastal Commission issued a Notice of Violation to Sable Offshore - a Houston-based company that purchased pipelines, offshore platforms, and the Las Flores Canyon production facility from ExxonMobil - for their work on pipelines without securing the proper permits.
Following that second notice, Sable Offshore applied for Zoning Clearance applications for both the anomaly repair work which had been stopped by the California Coastal Commission as well as Zoning Clearances to complete pipeline repair work in the future that the County officially declared authorized under current permits Wednesday.
The County of Santa Barbara already had additional requirements outside of the pipeline repair work detailed above.
According to a Sept. 3 SEC filing, Sable Offshore told investors it reached a conditional settlement agreement on Aug. 30, 2024, with Santa Barbara County.
The County agreed that installing 16 new safety valves underground removed those installations from its jurisdiction and that Sable Offshore's subsidiary Pacific Pipeline Company - which oversees the pipeline network - would establish a County-based Surveillance and Response Team.
The pipeline work stopped by the Coastal Commission is for anomaly repair work only and notably, does not include the installation of the safety valves required as part of the August settlement agreement mentioned above and necessary to restart oil production shared the County of Santa Barbara.
The image below, from an informational slide in an investor presentation by Sable Offshore courtesy of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, details the assets purchased by the company from ExxonMobil.
Your News Channel reached out to Sable Offshore and the California Coastal Commission for more information and have not received a response.
