Like oil and water, Sable Offshore and local jurisdictions’ visions for the future of three rigs off the Gaviota coastline are fundamentally incompatible—prompting recent pivots from both sides of the fence.
The California Coastal Commission and Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office filed a civil lawsuit and criminal charges, respectively, against the Texas-based oil company for allegedly breaking several environmental protocols during its work toward restarting offshore platforms Hondo, Harmony, and Heritage, and the onshore Las Flores pipeline.
Known collectively as the Santa Ynez Unit, the pipeline system has been inactive since 2015, when one of its lines caused the Refugio oil spill.
Nearly two weeks after the DA’s Office filed 21 criminal charges against Sable this September, the company announced a back-up plan to resume oil production at the Santa Ynez Unit regardless of whether it gets state approval to reboot the Las Flores pipeline or not.
“Continued delays related to the onshore pipeline will prompt Sable to fully pivot,” the company stated in a Sept. 29 memo to its investors.
The alternative route would move oil production efforts away from the Las Flores pipeline and into federal waters, via shuttle tankers. Sable noted that this strategy is not new to the Santa Ynez Unit.
Between 1981 and 1994, the unit produced 160 million barrels of oil through offshore storage and treating vessels. Sable purchased the unit from ExxonMobil in 2024, three decades after the Las Flores pipeline first became operational.
Sable told its investors that the company will “pursue both paths in parallel” and “all legal remedies” that apply to either route.
While a restart of the onshore Las Flores pipeline would “play a large role in stabilizing local refineries,” Sable stated, the offshore shuttle tanker option would give the company “freedom to market its production outside of the state of California.”
One week after Sable’s announcement, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board became the latest local agency to sue the company. The board filed a lawsuit on Oct. 6 that accuses Sable of not following permit procedures while discharging sediment and organic debris that can be harmful to aquatic habitats.
Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board Public Information Officer Nick Cahill told the Sun that neither he nor board officials would be able to take part in interviews about the lawsuit during the pending litigation.
“Entities that discharge waste are required to obtain permits from the state to protect water quality,” Central Coast Water Board Chair Jane Gray said in an Oct. 6 statement. “[Sable], however, chose to ignore state environmental regulation. … No cooperation should gain a business advantage by ignoring the law and harming the environment.”
This article appears in Oct 9 – Oct 16, 2025.