Pacific Pipeline Company (“PPC”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Sable Offshore Corp., and its predecessors have maintained a cathodic protection and pressure maintenance program on Line 324/325 (previously 901/903) since the pipeline was shut down in 2015. The line was evacuated, cleaned and preserved with inert nitrogen to maintain a corrosion-free state. In accordance with the 2020 Consent Decree — signed by federal agencies including the Department of Justice, the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as California state agencies, the Department of Fish & Wildlife, Department of Parks and Recreation, State Lands Commission, Office of State Fire Marshal, Regional Water Quality Control Board, and the Regents of the University of California — PPC undertook a comprehensive repair and maintenance program to restore the pipeline to “as-new” condition. Before initiating this program, PPC employed state-of-the-art pipeline integrity analysis equipment to assess the internal and external condition of the pipeline. The results of this assessment established the criteria for repairing the pipeline to meet the stringent requirements of the Consent Decree.
PPC’s repair and maintenance work began in 2024 within the existing pre-disturbed PPC pipeline right of way. While required by the Consent Decree to repair +/-150 Threshold anomalies in the pipeline wall, PPC has repaired or is in the process of repairing +/- 100 Threshold anomalies with an additional +/- 50 Threshold anomaly repairs to be made throughout the entirety of the 124-mile-long pipeline to bring the system to “as-new” condition. PPC has more than 30 predominantly union pipeline repair crews making these repairs and is currently working with all landowners and government agencies to complete this important work, with restart of the pipeline expected by the end of 2024.
The California Coastal Commission (“CCC”) has requested additional information from PPC concerning its work and PPC is now actively engaged with CCC staff to respond to those requests. Repair and maintenance activities that are exempt from Coastal Act permitting requirements have been conducted on the pipeline under the pipeline’s existing Coastal Development Permits for the last 35+ years, and PPC believes its recent work is within the scope of those historic activities. Pending further engagement with CCC staff, PPC has moved all crews out of the Coastal Zone to other areas of the pipeline complex to proceed with remaining repairs and maintenance in compliance with the stringent safety requirements of the Consent Decree, ultimately including a full hydrotest of the pipeline to ensure it is in “as-new” condition before restart of oil and gas production. These tests will be conducted under supervision of both federal and California state agencies to ensure accuracy and compliance with the strict standards of the Consent Decree.
About Sable
Sable Offshore Corp. is an independent oil and gas company, headquartered in Houston, Texas, focused on responsibly developing the Santa Ynez Unit in federal waters offshore California. The Sable team has extensive experience safely operating in California.
Forward-Looking Statements
The information in this press release include “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press release, the words “could,” “should,” “will,” “ may,” “ believe,” “ anticipate,” “ intend,” “ estimate,” “expect,” “project,” “continue,” “plan,” forecast,” “predict,” “potential,” “future,” “outlook,” and “target,” the negative of such terms and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements will contain such identifying words. These statements are based on the current beliefs and expectations of Sable’s management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Sable’s actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements include: the ability to recommence production of the Santa Ynez Unit assets and the cost and time required therefor; global economic conditions and inflation; increased operating costs; lack of availability of drilling and production equipment, supplies, services and qualified personnel; geographical concentration of operations; environmental and weather risks; regulatory changes and uncertainties; litigation, complaints and/or adverse publicity; privacy and data protection laws, privacy or data breaches, or loss of data; our ability to comply with laws and regulations applicable to our business; and other one-time events and other factors that can be found in Sable’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, and any subsequent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q or Current Report on Form 8-K, which are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are available on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website (www.sec.gov). Except as required by applicable law, Sable undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect the impact of events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this press release.
Disclaimers
Non-Producing Assets
The Santa Ynez Unit assets have not produced commercial quantities of hydrocarbons since such assets were shut in during May of 2015 when the only pipeline transporting hydrocarbons produced from such assets to market ceased operations. There can be no assurance that the necessary permits will be obtained that would allow the pipeline to recommence transportation and allow the assets to recommence production. If production is not recommenced by January 1, 2026, the terms of the asset acquisition with ExxonMobil Corporation would potentially result in the assets being reverted to ExxonMobil Corporation without any compensation to Sable therefor.
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