Controversial pipeline re-opening set to move forward with California waiver

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (CN) — A Texas-based oil company announced Thursday it had received a waiver from the California fire marshal, exempting it from certain corrosion safety requirements for a controversial Santa Barbara pipeline system it aims to re-open.

The move sparked outcry from environmental organizations, which claim that the relaxed safety standards could lead to a repeat of the destructive 2015 oil spill caused by the same pipeline only ten years earlier.

“Restarting these decades-old defective pipelines is a recipe for disaster,” said Julie Teel Simmonds, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement. “Shame on California’s fire marshal for waiving important federal safety rules and doing it all behind closed doors without any environmental review.”

The 124-mile-long Las Flores Pipeline system has been shut down since a 2015 oil spill, where a corroded pipeline ruptured and released about 450,000 gallons of oil near Refugio State Beach, disrupting one of the most biologically diverse areas on the West Coast.

Now known as the Refugio Oil Spill, the event caused significant damage and thick, black oil blobs washed up along the Southern California coast for weeks afterward.

The California Office of the State Fire Marshal granted the waiver on December 17, 2024, exempting the pipeline from federally required anti-corrosion measures, a major step toward restarting oil production from the Las Flores Pipeline.

Federal safety standards typically require pipelines to be equipped with anti-corrosion measures called cathodic protections, but Sable Offshore, which owns the pipeline, said the fire marshal granted them the waiver because of the pipeline’s newly enhanced “integrity standards,” according to SEC documents released Thursday.

“We appreciate the state fire marshal’s approval, recognizing our robust safety measures, which go above and beyond state and federal requirements, including the federal court’s consent decree,” Sable said in a statement provided to Courthouse News. “By the time of restart, this pipeline will meet more stringent safety requirements than any other pipeline in the state.”

The oil company called the waiver a “milestone achievement,” and plans to restart oil production from the pipeline’s offshore platforms as early as the first quarter of 2025.

The California Office of the State Fire Marshal pushed back on the idea it is giving the oil company a free pass. In fact, the standard the company is held to is stricter than required, it told Courthouse News in an email.

“The state waiver does not abandon the requirement for cathodic protection; it acknowledges that the methods for cathodic protection in place are not adequate to prevent leaks and spills on insulated lines such as CA-324 & CA-325,”  said Christine McMorrow, the department’s deputy director of strategic communications, referring to two pipelines in the Las Flores system, the former of which ruptured in 2015 and caused the oil spill.

McMorrow said Sable must still complete numerous other actions required by its office before it can restart the pipeline, as well as approvals from other state and federal agencies.

The Las Flores Pipeline was originally closed following the 2015 oil spill. Owned by Plains All American Pipeline at the time, the company agreed to sell the pipeline to ExxonMobil in 2022, which in turn sold it to Sable Offshore in February.

Teel Simmonds said the move blindsided organizations like hers, which have been in contact with government agencies for several months over the issue. She added it also raised deep concerns because corrosion was a direct and undisputed cause of the 2015 oil spill.

“We never thought the day would come that this would be back on the table,” she told Courthouse News in a phone interview.

Teel Simmonds explained that there are tremendous environmental and safety risks to restarting this 28-year-old “zombie” pipeline, especially because the environment is still healing from the 2015 oil spill.

“Oil spills aren’t done when you stop seeing the oil come to shore,” she said. “The damage lasts for years and decades. The California coast can’t take another oil spill.”

In terms of legal strategy, Teel Simmonds said the center is now banking on a decision from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which has 60 days to object to the waiver under federal law.

“We will be encouraging them to reject. We think this is an unsafe proposal,” she said.

The waiver announcement comes just one month after the company settled a $70 million lawsuit with landowners affected by the 2015 oil spill, closing a nine-year legal battle.