Sable Offshore oil and gas company restarted oil production at the Santa Ynez Unit on May 15, according to a May 19 announcement. The news came on the same day as the 10-year anniversary of the 2015 Refugio Beach oil spill. Questions remain about how the restart will be impacted by the Santa Barbara County Supervisor’s vote on May 13 to phase out oil and gas production.
Sable’s stock price rose by roughly 30% in the five days leading up to the announcement. Nexus file photo.
According to a press release from the pipeline’s owner Sable, production has restarted and oil has begun flowing to the processing facility located in Las Flores Canyon (LFC). Sable expects to have approximately 540,000 barrels of crude oil at LFC by mid-June and begin oil sales in July. The Santa Ynez Unit (SYU) contains the offshore platforms that extract oil and the onshore processing plants that receive oil from LFC.
This comes the same day as the anniversary of the 2015 Refugio Beach oil spill, which ruptured due to corrosion of the pipeline and damaged nearly 1,500 acres of beach and killed an estimated 791 local wildlife creatures. Despite an initial U.S. Department of Transportation Failure Investigation Report which found that roughly 123,000 gallons of oil were spilled during the 2015 incident, a later UC Santa Barbara report found it was closer to 451,000 gallons.
Maureen Ellenberger, chair of the Sierra Club’s Santa Barbara-Ventura Chapter, said the club is working with a coalition to address the restart of the pipeline. The coalition includes several student groups such as the Associated Students Environmental Affairs Board (EAB) and the UC Santa Barbara chapter of California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG).
“They announced it on Monday, on the 10-year anniversary, especially to just show their blatant disregard for the people of Santa Barbara County, the wildlife of Santa Barbara County and the people of California,” Ellenberger said. “We are not going to stop fighting until that pipeline is completely stopped and shut down for good.”
Sable’s stock price rose by roughly 30% in the five days leading up to the announcement, bringing its stock price from a high of $28.53 on May 14 to a high of $32.76 on May 19.
The Santa Barbara County Supervisors voted 3:1 to phase out onshore oil and gas operations in the county. According to the Santa Barbara Independent, the plan is that no new onshore wells will be allowed and that plans will have to be made on how existing operations will be phased out.
According to Eleanor Gartner, the district representative and communications director for Santa Barbara County Second District Supervisor Laura Capps, this decision would apply to the SYU. County staff will present a plan for the phase-out in October to the supervisors, according to Gartner.
The Board of Supervisors will then be able to approve, deny or give their feedback on the plan. This would be followed by an amortization period, meaning a time of discussion regarding how existing operators can recoup the cost of their existing infrastructure and operations. It is unknown how long this process will take overall.
Sable Offshore did not respond to a request for comment on what would happen to the SYU in light of the Supervisors’ phase-out plan.
On May 8, Sable filed a lawsuit against the county alleging that the county has not complied with county codes and has violated sections of the U.S. and California Constitutions by not completing the transfer of county permits regarding the pipeline. In February, the Supervisors voted 2:2 to transfer county permits for the Las Flores Pipeline System from ExxonMobil to Sable.
At the time of the county hearing, Sable said it viewed the split vote as meaning that the appeal did not pass and that the Planning Commission’s decision stands, and that the permit transfer was not needed to continue.
Gartner said no comment on the case can be given as it is an active litigation.
The student organization, UCSB Stop Sable, has been denouncing the restart of the pipeline since January. It is made up of EAB, CALPIRG and the Environmental Law Club at UCSB. Second-year political science major and CALPIRG campaign coordinator Johnny Rodrigues-McConville said that he was “disappointed” to hear the pipeline had restarted production.
“That’s obviously not how we wanted it to go, especially for people working on the campaign, we’ve been working pretty hard,” Rodrigues-McConville said.
Both Ellenberger and Rodrigues-McConville noted a report from Environmental Defense Center — a Santa Barbara-based legal nonprofit organization — that said restarting the pipeline would likely result in a spill every year as well as a major rupture every four years.
He said that the organization will be targeting state officials, especially California Governor Gavin Newsom, to voice their concerns with the pipeline and gather public support for the campaign. The campaign also supports a bill introduced by Assemblymember Gregg Hart that would pertain to Sable’s operations, according to Rodrigues-McConville.
“As a student who goes to school here, I say this to every student, it’s just going to be right here. It’s on our coast,” he said. “Campus point, Manzi Beach, Devs, Sands, the oil is going to be all washed up on these beaches. And these are our beaches. Not only that, but it’s a shame if this were to happen. An oil company coming in from Texas can decide what happens on our beaches and cause that kind of destruction, where we live and work and go to school.”
A version of this article appeared on p. 4 of the May 22, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
