Oil pipeline involved in 2021 Orange County spill will be restarted

An underwater oil pipeline that ruptured off the coast of Huntington Beach in 2021 and sent thousands of gallons of crude gushing into the waters of Orange County is being put back into service, its operator said.

Houston-based Amplify Energy Co. said Monday that federal regulators have approved restarting the 17.3-mile pipeline, which runs from an oil platform in federal waters off Huntington Beach to a processing plant in Long Beach.

Amplify said it began refilling the pipeline last weekend, a process that will take about two weeks. The firm said the pipeline will operate under procedures approved by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which regulates the nation’s 2.6-million-mile pipeline network.

The oil pipeline’s return to operations marks the end to a “very challenging last 18 months,” Chief Executive Martyn Willsher said in a statement.

The San Pedro Bay pipeline sent at least 25,000 gallons of crude gushing the waters off Huntington Beach in October 2021, oiling birds and other wildlife and forcing a weeklong closure of beaches along the Orange County coast.

The cleanup from the spill was relatively quick. But the legal wrangling that followed was protracted, punctuated by a series of multimillion-dollar settlements over who was at fault: the company that owned and operated the pipeline, or the container ships accused of damaging the pipeline with their anchors during a bad winter storm nine months before the spill.

U.S. Coast Guard investigators said the pipeline showed evidence of being dragged across the seafloor, with one portion bent like a bow. They said massive anchors striking or dragging the pipeline could have weakened the conduit by stripping away its concrete casing and making it more vulnerable to future damage.

Attorneys for Amplify argued that movement data transmitted by the vessels showed them crossing over the pipeline repeatedly during a storm in January 2021. The shipping companies denied wrongdoing.

Amplify last month said the shipping companies had agreed to pay it a $96.5-million settlement and said Monday it had received $85 million in net proceeds.

The shipping firms, which owned and operated the MSC Danit and Cosco Beijing container ships, also agreed to pay $45 million to settle lawsuits brought by Orange County residents and business owners, including operators of fisheries that were closed for more than a month.

Amplify agreed to pay $50 million last fall to residents and business owners affected by the spill, including a Huntington Beach surf school, coastal property owners, a Seal Beach bait and tackle store, and several groups of fishing and seafood sales companies.

The Houston energy firm pleaded guilty last fall to federal environmental charges and agreed to pay nearly $13 million in fines and reimbursements connected to the spill. The firm also pleaded no contest to state charges and agreed to pay $4.9 million in fines and penalties.