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Chevron Balks at Santa Barbara’s OK for Tankers

From Times Staff and Wire Reports

Santa Barbara County supervisors Monday tentatively approved a permit allowing Chevron Corp. to ship oil by tanker from offshore platforms to Los Angeles while a pipeline is being built, but the oil company rejected the proposal.

The supervisors voted 4 to 1 to issue a permit allowing Chevron and its partners to use tankers to ship up to 35,000 barrels of crude per day from the Point Arguello project for up to three years.

In exchange, the oil companies would have to help build a $200-million pipeline to transport crude. They would pay monetary damages if the promise is not kept.

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Chevron spokesman G. Michael Marcy called the permit offer a “sham and a fraud.” He said that provisions of the suggested proposal were “absolutely, positively, unequivocally (unacceptable)--even if they sugarcoat it.”

The board was to take up the process of drafting conditions of the permit today. Chevron has yet to formally agree to build a pipeline.

Environmentalist Bob Sulnick, executive director of the American Oceans Campaign, called the tentative permit “a political compromise.” He said he was not surprised “that Chevron would not agree to build a pipeline--because in my view they never intended to pipeline oil.”

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Chevron and its 17 partners in the $2.5-billion Point Arguello project have long sought to ship crude oil by tanker to refineries in Los Angeles County.

Environmentalists opposed to tanker shipments argued that a spill like the one that fouled Santa Barbara County beaches in 1969 would be ecologically devastating.

The consortium made two earlier requests for tanker permits. The county approved a permit in May, 1989, but the California Coastal Commission overturned that ruling.

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The county rejected a second request in 1990, citing environmental concerns.

Industry officials and environmentalists concede that pipelines are safer than tankers but that existing pipelines cannot accommodate potential production.

Chevron produces up to 35,000 barrels a day at the project, sending 20,000 barrels by pipeline to Northern California and 15,000 barrels by pipeline to Kern County, then south to Los Angeles County refineries.

The Point Arguello field north of Santa Barbara was discovered in 1979. Chevron and its partners estimate that it holds reserves of 300 million barrels of oil.

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