After being offline for more than a decade, oil is officially flowing again through the Santa Ynez Pipeline System off the coast of Southern California.
The network of pipelines, which pass through Santa Barbara County before ending at Pentland Station in Kern County, restarted Monday following an executive order from President Donald Trump on Friday, which has been seized on by Gavin Newsom.
“This is an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting,” Newsom said in a statement when Trump first announced plans for Sable to resume operations.
The Trump administration, which used emergency powers under the Defense Production Act, cited national security concerns and “potentially disastrous consequences” for residents in California.
Jim Flores, Sable’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, underscored the company’s commitment to complying with the executive order and put “California consumers first by increasing domestic supply of crude oil into the California market by approximately 17%.”
“We look forward to working closely with the Department of Energy in fully complying with the DPA and working with the Trump administration to take all necessary steps to deliver the energy necessary for the security and defense of the country,” Flores said in a statement on Monday announcing that oil is once again flowing.
Sable restarted oil production at one of its offshore platforms in May, but has not sold or transported the product due to ongoing legal battles.
The company currently has about 540,000 barrels of processed crude oil in storage, and plans to start saling by April 1 at about 50,000 barrels per day, according to a press release.
Sable said it is “fully staffed” and will resume full production of its other two offshore platforms later this month, before bringing the final one online in June.
Brady Bradshaw, a senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said he is “distressed and saddened” about the possibility of another oil disaster in the state, referring to the 2015 pipeline burst that created one of the worst oil spills in California history.
The incident blocked Sable from resuming operations, until now.
“For the sake of the incredible Pacific ocean and all of its wildlife, the community has worked so hard to make sure we’d never see oil flowing through this defective pipeline again,” Shaw said in a statement.
“This is a dark day for California and I urge state officials to keep standing up to Trump’s bullying. We’ll keep fighting as hard as we can to protect Santa Barbara’s coast and end offshore drilling in the state once and for all.”
