US hands over emergency special permit to Sable Offshore

December 25, 2025, by Melisa Cavcic

Sable Offshore, a Texas-headquartered oil and gas company, has received an emergency special permit for Santa Ynez pipeline system segments in California.

Harmony platform; Source: Sable Offshore

The U.S. Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued an emergency special permit for segments of the interstate Santa Ynez Pipeline System, specifically segments 324 and 325, on December 23, 2025.

This move approves Sable Offshore’s implementation of enhanced integrity management practices and specifies operational conditions. The Texas-based player claims to be focused on responsibly developing the Santa Ynez Unit (SYU) in federal waters offshore California.

The firm restarted one of three SYU platforms in May 2025, enabling the first oil output from the Harmony platform since May 2015, when a corroded onshore pipeline ruptured and released around 450,000 gallons (1,703.44 cubic meters) of oil near Refugio State Beach north of Santa Barbara.

The platform’s oil production from six wells to Las Flores Canyon (LFC) at a rate of around 6,000 barrels of oil per day was expected to be followed by a resumption of output from the additional 44 wells on the Heritage platform and the 26 wells on the Hondo platform by the end of 2025.

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Recently, the company refuted any wrongdoing in its actions to bring back online two pipelines connecting its assets offshore California to an onshore processing facility in the aftermath of legal action initiated by the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office.