Sable Offshore Seeks $347M in Damages from State

Sable Offshore is upping the ante in its fight against the California Coastal Commission. 

Earlier this year, the commission gave Sable three cease-and-desist orders, and an $18 million fine, for completing anomaly repair work on the old, corroded oil pipeline running through the Gaviota Coast without obtaining new permits or undergoing environmental review for the work.

In the subsequent, ongoing lawsuit between the oil company and the commission, Sable officially quantified the monetary damages it claims it has suffered from the “unlawful delay of, and damages to, the restart of the Las Flores Pipeline System” due to the commission’s disciplinary actions. Sable is seeking damages in excess of $347 million. 

Said pipeline is the same one that became so corroded under its former owner, Plains All American, that it ruptured and caused the huge Refugio Oil Spill in 2015. 

Sable’s announcement comes on the heels of the Santa Barbara County District Attorney filing 21 criminal charges against Sable, claiming that Sable polluted waterways and caused other ecological harm when it dug up the Gaviota Coast to repair the damaged pipeline. 

Sable is also in the midst of continued litigation with the nonprofit group Environmental Defense Center, which is fighting Sable in court over fears of environmental catastrophe should Sable resume pumping oil through the once-ruptured pipeline. 

Repairing the pipeline is one crucial step in Sable’s attempted restart of oil production in Santa Barbara County, including facilities formerly owned by Exxon Mobil: three offshore platforms, onshore processing plant, and the ruptured pipeline. 

The Coastal Commission declined to comment on the matter at this time.

Additionally, Sable announced that on September 29, it filed a declaratory judgement action against the State of California in Kern County. It is asking the court to confirm that certain provisions of Senate Bill 237 (SB 237) — Gavin Newsom’s fast-tracking oil development bill for Kern County — does not apply to the Las Flores Pipeline System. 

Although SB 237 — disapprovingly dubbed by some environmental groups as Newsom’s “Drill Bill” —  is meant to ease environmental regulations hampering oil development in Kern County, it includes language that, for Sable, instead heightens the regulatory hurdles standing in its way.

That includes language that prohibits Sable from restarting the old pipeline without implementing a specific hydrostatic testing program, as well as language stating that Sable would be required to secure a conditional development permit from the Coastal Commission to get a restart permit for the company’s plant, pipeline, and three offshore oil platforms. 

However, in response to the obstacles and delays to restarting the pipeline system, Sable is threatening to pursue the accelerated “Offshore Storage and Treating Vessel” strategy, which means transporting oil from the offshore platforms via barges in federal waters (and therefore free from state-based restraints). It was the technique used to process oil from the Santa Ynez Unit from 1981 to 1994, producing in that time frame “[more than] 160 million barrels of oil equivalent,” according to Sable.