Skip to footer

Exxon shuts down oil production as Santa Barbara cleans up spill

Exxon Mobil is halting production at three offshore oil platforms because it has no way to transport its crude. In May, a pipeline breach spilled an estimated 100,000 gallons of oil along the scenic Santa Barbara coast.

|
Jae C. Hong/AP/File
Workers prepare an oil containment boom at Refugio State Beach, north of Goleta, Calif. The shutdown of a pipeline that spilled up to 101,000 gallons of crude on the Santa Barbara coast forced Exxon Mobil Corp. to halt operations at three offshore platforms because it couldn't deliver oil to refineries.

Exxon Mobil Corp. has shut down production at three offshore oil platforms until it can come up with a way to resume transportation of the crude that was interrupted last month by a pipeline break that fouled a stretch of the Pacific coast of California’s Santa Barbara County.

Until the pipeline is repaired, Exxon had hoped to use tanker trucks, each with a capacity of 6,720 gallons, to make up to 192 trips per day to transport the oil to from a company facility near the Pacific coast to several destinations, including an oil refinery in San Luis Obispo County, about 70 miles to the north.

Exxon had filed an emergency application with the county to bring the trucks into service, but Dianne Black, the assistant director of planning and development for Santa Barbara County, rejected the effort, saying the situation wasn’t an emergency. Instead, she said the company must go through normal channels, which include a long environmental study, to obtain a permit to move the oil by truck. (Related: Growing India Becomes Major LNG Player)

Because the oil cannot move, Exxon was forced to suspend operations at the three offshore rigs last week, company spokesman Richard Keil said June 23.

Tom Kloza, the global director of energy at the Oil Price Information Service, said the rigs’ shutdown shouldn’t affect retail fuel prices in Southern California, but it will take a modest financial toll on Exxon. He noted that crude oil was selling last week for up to $64 per barrel, but the price could exceed $90 by the time it’s refined for gasoline, meaning Exxon could lose money until the pipeline is repaired. (Related: 2015 Could Be The Year Of Peak Oil)

“I’m sure it’s a royal pain for them,” Kloza told The Associated Press. “Given the profit margins for gasoline, whether you have to [deliver] it by wheelbarrow or rickshaw, you’re very motivated.”

 

Still, production at the three platforms is estimated at only about 30,000 barrels a day, a very small proportion of the 1.7 million barrels per day of crude needed by California.

On May 19, a badly corroded conduit owned by Plains All American Pipeline of Houston breached, spilling an estimated 100,000 gallons of oil that fouled a stretch of the scenic Santa Barbara coastline and created tarballs that reached as far as Los Angeles County about 100 miles away. The spill also is being held responsible for the deaths of more than 100 marine mammals and almost 200 birds. (Related: Investors Should Prepare For The Long Infrastructure Boom)

Soon after the spill, Exxon already had reduced production from the three platforms by nearly two-thirds and began storing the crude they did produce in large tanks. But those facilities “are filled up right now,” according to Devin Drude, the director of the county’s energy division.

Exxon’s three platforms aren’t the only rigs that have suspended work. Four other platforms owned by two other companies also have been forced to halt nearby operations. A platform owned by Venoco Inc. shut down just a few days after the pipeline spill, and three platforms owned by Freeport-McMoRan also have suspended operations for the past several weeks.

By Andy Tully Of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

Original story: http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Damaged-Santa-Barbara-Pipeline-Sees-Exxon-Halt-Offshore-Production.html

Source: http://oilprice.com/

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Exxon shuts down oil production as Santa Barbara cleans up spill
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2015/0626/Exxon-shuts-down-oil-production-as-Santa-Barbara-cleans-up-spill
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe