Sable Offshore faces new civil lawsuit over alleged violations of state environmental laws
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. (KEYT) – The California Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Sable Offshore, a Houston-based company working to restart oil production locally, for alleged violations of state environmental laws while preparing pipelines that have remained dormant since the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill.
The lawsuit alleges that Sable Offshore repeatedly discharged associated debris into state waters without proper authorization and despite warnings from the authorizing agency.
"Rushing to meet a July 1, 2025 deadline imposed by the California Office of State Fire Marshal for restarting its onshore crude oil pipeline network, Sable intentionally ignored its obligations under California Water Code (Water Code) sections 13260, et seq. to apply to the Regional Water Board for permits before it proposes to discharge waste that could affect the water quality of the state," stated the civil suit filed by the Attorney General's Office. "By avoiding the imposition of waste discharge requirements and associated regulatory oversight of its activities until after the work was completed, Sable placed profits over environmental protection in its rush to get oil on the market."
According to the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, the environmental regulator issued multiple notices detailing the potential violations beginning in December of 2024.
In April of this year, the Board adopted Resolution R3-2025-0024 which recommended that the state's Attorney General's Office file a lawsuit in the local superior court seeking the assessment of civil liability and injunctive relief for alleged violations of the California Water Code.
Below is information provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from an investor presentation by Sable Offshore ahead of its merger with Flame Acquisition Corp. before acquiring local oil production infrastructure.
"No corporation should gain a business advantage by ignoring the law and harming the environment," said Jane Gray, chair of the Central Coast Water Board. "Entities that discharge waste are required to obtain permits from the state to protect water quality. Sable Offshore Corp. is no different. It, however, chose to ignore state environmental regulation."
The civil complaint went on to allege that the company discharged sediment and vegetation into inland bodies of water along the Gaviota Coast while also improperly submitting information to state regulators.
"The configuration of Sable’s onshore pipeline network, now operated as Lines 324 and 325, poses unique operational integrity management challenges," explained the most recent lawsuit filed against Sable Offshore. "To meet the conditions imposed by the Consent Decree [issued regarding the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill], Sable needed to retrofit the lines by installing safety check valves and make 144 anomaly repairs over what is a relatively short span of pipeline. The latter activity, colloquially referred to as a “pig and dig” operation, requires excavation to expose sections of pipe identified for repair by “smart pigs” run through the pipeline to identify metal loss. Both the valve installation and the repair excavations would typically require road and vegetation clearance for access. A number of these repair sites were at or within streambeds and channels that are designated as “Waters of the State” (WOTS) and, in some cases, are also “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS). Accordingly, Sable is required to identify and permit excavation activity that “could affect the quality of waters of the state” before commencing work. When Sable’s integrity and environmental management teams developed what should have been a comprehensive “Repair Plan” for Lines 324 and 325 (Repair Plan) as required by pipeline regulations, they knew waste discharge requirements were necessary for excavation activity that could affect water quality but chose to ignore Sable’s obligation to obtain them at the fourteen sites".
Attempts to prepare pipelines both onshore and offshore to restart oil production from offshore oil platforms and the Las Flores Canyon processing facility have been met with a variety of legal hurdles.
Sable is also engaged in a lawsuit against regulatory oversight and penalties imposed by the California Coastal Commission regarding work done in the Coastal Zone necessary to restart oil production as well as a warning that public claims to have restarted oil production already may have violated leases issued by the California State Lands Commission.
The restart announcement came almost exactly ten years after the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill where at least 3,000 barrels of crude oil spilled from ruptured Line 901, now known as Line 324, and impacted 150 miles of California coastline.
In a statement Monday, Sable Offshore stated it is seeking damages from the California Coastal Commission for the delays and alleged damage to the pipelines system in excess of $347 million.
Your News Channel followed Sable Offshore's repair work along the Gaviota coastline in March, April, and May of this year, work on offshore pipelines connecting platforms to the Las Flores Canyon processing facility, and the announcement by the company that it had restarted production at some of the wells on offshore platforms.
An arraignment on the criminal complaint in Santa Barbara County Superior Court is currently scheduled for Nov. 4 of this year.
"The allegations from the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office are inflammatory and extremely misleading," stated a spokesperson on behalf of Sable Offshore regarding the charges filed earlier the same week. "All of the repairs and excavations were supervised by a certified independent biologist and cultural resource professional and Office of State Fire Marshal personnel. No wildlife were adversely affected. All of these previously disturbed areas have been or are being remediated in accordance with state and local erosion control mitigation measures."
Despite those civil and criminal complaints, Sable Offshore submitted its official restart plan with the Office of State Fire Marshal in late September and announced it had also applied with the federal government for an alternative shipping plan just days after criminal charges were filed locally.
The proposal, filed with members of the National Energy Dominance Council, was for permits to construct an offshore transportation and treating vessel location that would be approximately one nautical mile away from Platform Harmony.
The decision to ship crude oil from an offshore tender in federal waters to an out-of-state or even international destination would bypass the authority of the Office of State Fire Marshal confirmed the state-based emergency response agency Tuesday.
Sable Offshore stated that the savings from not restarting the Las Flores Canyon facility and onshore pipelines subject to state oversight could cover the costs of pursuing the second option to use transport vessels in federal waters.
Both options are compared in the image below, courtesy of Sable Offshore's application with federal authorities last month.
Sable Offshore noted that legislation recently passed by the state legislature, and signed into law by the Governor played a factor in its pursuit of alternative options as well as potential out-of-state destinations for crude oil from the Santa Ynez Unit.
On Sep. 29, Sable filed a declaratory judgement action against Kern County seeking confirmation if SB 237 applies to pipelines from the Las Flores Canyon facility to oil production infrastructure there.
"Sable continues to work diligently with the State of California to safely and responsibly resume petroleum transportation through the Las Flores Pipeline System in accordance with its Federal Consent Decree, which was entered into by several state and federal agencies," argued the company in a statement on its website published Monday. "Continued delays in approving the restart plans for the Las Flores Pipeline System will prompt Sable to pursue the accelerated Offshore Storage and Treating Vessel strategy, which was utilized to process Santa Ynez Unit production in federal waters from 1981 – 1994."
Your News Channel has reached out to Sable Offshore and the California Coastal Commission for more information about restart plans and their respective responses will be added to this article when they are received.
