SACRAMENTO, California — A company seeking to restart production on an oil rig off the California coast announced Monday that it would seek federal permission to transport its products using ships, dodging a messy fight that has developed with state leaders over reopening a pipeline.
What happened: In a Monday presentation to investors, Texas-based Sable Offshore Oil Corp. announced that it had requested expedited permitting from the Trump administration to use ships to transport oil from its three offshore platforms in federal waters north of Santa Barbara, a move that would allow the company to circumvent state restrictions.
The company said it would pursue an Offshore Storage and Treating Vessel strategy to market its oil. This would allow the company to ship its products to U.S. refineries outside of California or to international markets.
“Sable continues to work diligently with the State of California to safely and responsibly resume petroleum transportation through the onshore pipeline in accordance with its Federal Consent Decree, which was entered into by several state and federal agencies,” the company said in a statement. “Continued delays related to the onshore pipeline will prompt Sable to fully pivot back to a leased OS&T strategy.”
