Sable Offshore facing criminal charges over repair work done to restart oil production
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – On Tuesday, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney's Office filed criminal charges against Sable Offshore, a Houston-based company working since early last year to restart oil production in the region, over alleged violations made during onshore repair work.
According to the charges filed in Santa Barbara County Superior Court on Sep. 16, the energy company is facing five felony counts of knowingly discharging a pollutant into local waterways including Asphaltum Creek, Nojoqui Creek, and Arroyo Quemado spanning from October and September of 2024 and into February and April of this year.
The company is also facing 16 additional misdemeanor charges for unlawful obstruction of a streambed and improper actions regarding substances or materials deleterious to wildlife with violations ranging from August of 2024 to April of 2025.
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 on Thursday regarding the charges filed earlier this 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.
On Sep. 27, 2024, the California Coastal Commission issued a Notice of Violation to Sable Offshore regarding its work on pipelines, offshore platforms, and the Las Flores Canyon production facility collectively known as the Santa Ynez Unit, for their work on associated pipelines without securing the proper permits.
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.
Your News Channel followed Sable Offshore's repair work along the Gaviota coastline in March, April, and May of this year as well as work on offshore pipelines connecting platforms to the Las Flores Canyon processing facility.
Back in in May of 2025, 18 of the 22 detected pipeline anomalies that still required repair work were inside of Gaviota State Park, shown as the blue circles on the left side of the image below along Line 325a which is the green line. Already completed pipeline repair work at the time were designated as the yellow circles.
The announcement came almost exactly ten years after the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill from ruptured Line 901, now known as Line 324, which impacted 150 miles of California coastline and destroyed thousands of acres of shoreline habitats and resulted in the California State Lands Commission warning Sable Offshore that its claims may have violated state regulations as well as the language found within the state regulator's leases with the company.
"Sable continues to lawfully work with all state and federal agencies to work towards a successful restart of Lines 324 and 325," shared Sable Offshore in a statement Thursday. "We are fully cooperating and compliant with the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife requirements."
Despite those warnings from the California State Lands Commission, on July 25, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement issued a statement celebrating the restart of oil production stating, "This is a significant achievement for the Interior Department and aligns with the Administration's Energy Dominance initiative, as it successfully resumed production in just five months. With production now underway at Sable's Platform Harmony, the Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) continues to work with Sable to bring additional production online. Preproduction inspections for Platform Heritage are set to begin soon and will mark the second SYU platform to come online, targeting an October 2025 timeframe."
Those claims from Sable Offshore in May and from the federal government in July, prompted California Congressional members to issue a letter demanding more information from the Trump Administation on Tuesday of this week.
"BSEE [the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement]’s statements are confusing at best and deceptive at worst," noted Tuesday's letter from California congressional members. "It is unclear whether the Trump administration bought into the company’s inaccurate statements [in May] or whether BSEE’s July 25 statement references different information entirely. BSEE’s July 25 statement also calls into question whether the Bureau had received accurate information from the company when the Bureau decided to issue 10 approvals for well modification permits for Sable in July."
According to Tuesday's letter, Sable Offshore is already facing class action lawsuits alleging that it had mislead investors in its May announcement about restarting production as well as various lawsuits alleging violations of the California Coastal Act that are still working their way through the court system.
"Sable has consistently ignored California law, as confirmed by the court’s decision today [May, 28, 2025] to halt work on this aging oil pipeline in Santa Barbara," said a spokesperson on behalf of the California Coastal Commission. "This fly-by-night oil company has repeatedly abused the public’s trust, racking up millions of dollars in fines and causing environmental damage along the treasured Gaviota Coast."
Sable Offshore's Thursday statement included a disclaimer to current and potential investors that stated, "The Santa Ynez Unit assets discussed in this [Thursday's] press release have not sold commercial quantities of hydrocarbons since such Santa Ynez Unit assets were shut in during June of 2015 when the only onshore pipeline transporting hydrocarbons produced from such Santa Ynez Unit assets to market ceased transportation. There can be no assurance that the necessary approvals will be obtained that would allow the onshore pipeline to recommence transportation and allow the Santa Ynez Unit assets to recommence sales."
Your News Channel reached out to the Santa Barbara County District Attorney's Office for comment and the law enforcement organization stated that it does not provide comment on pending litigation and while an investigation remains ongoing.
