SANTA BARBARA, Calif.— A Santa Barbara Superior Court today upheld its July preliminary injunction prohibiting the restart of an onshore oil pipeline system that ruptured in 2015 until certain conditions are met.

Under the injunction, Sable Offshore Corp. must notify the court and parties to the lawsuit if and when it receives the remaining approvals it needs to restart the system, and that it intends to restart, at least 10 court days before it does so.

“The court had excellent reasons for granting this injunction in the first place, and I’m relieved that we’ll still have that safeguard,” said Julie Teel Simmonds, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This oil pipeline has such a checkered history that it shouldn’t be restarted without the utmost scrutiny. If Sable says a restart is coming, we’ll absolutely use the 10 days required by the injunction to make sure all laws have been followed to keep wildlife and the coast safe.”

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Wishtoyo Foundation filed the preliminary injunction request in June 2025, in response to Sable’s announcement that it had resumed oil production from one of three offshore platforms related to the pipeline and was storing that oil in onshore tanks while it sought to restart the failed Las Flores pipeline system.

The groups filed the preliminary injunction request as part of their pending lawsuit against the Office of the State Fire Marshal. That case challenges the agency’s issuance of waivers from corrosion-related pipeline safety requirements without any environmental review, public notice or opportunity for a hearing. The Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center filed a similar lawsuit and request for relief on behalf of a group of environmental organizations.

No agency has yet conducted a full environmental review of the restart project, and several state agency approvals are still required for a restart.

Several other lawsuits related to the pipeline restart are ongoing. Among other violations, Sable has been cited by the California Coastal Commission for unlawful work in sensitive coastal habitat and sued by the California attorney general and Santa Barbara district attorney for legal violations tied to unlawful discharge into creeks and waterways.

In December the Trump administration moved to seize control of the pipeline system from the State Fire Marshal and issued Sable an emergency special permit that enables restart despite the pipelines’ design defects. Environmental organizations including the Center have challenged these actions in court, as has the state of California.

Today’s ruling clarifies that those federal actions do not affect the court’s prior decision, and the injunction remains in place despite Sable and the Trump administration’s efforts to circumvent the state.

The oil spill on May 19, 2015, at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara ravaged 150 miles of the California coast. What is believed to be 450,000 gallons of oil polluted thousands of acres of shoreline and habitat and killed hundreds of marine mammals and birds, shutting down beaches and fisheries.

The onshore and offshore pipelines, three offshore platforms and onshore processing facilities known collectively as the Santa Ynez Unit have been shut down for more than 10 years since the pipeline failed in 2015. Sable purchased the unit in 2024 and has been aggressively pushing to resuscitate the defective pipeline system and restart oil operations ever since.