Venoco, Inc. on Monday applied for an emergency permit with the City of Goleta to truck about 5,500 barrels of emulsified crude oil now trapped on Platform Holly within the pipeline to the Onshore Ellwood Facility and inside several storage vessels and containers. Venoco’s facilities have been effectively shut down since the May 19 Refugio Oil Spill.
Venoco officials made clear they are not seeking permission to truck so that they can resume production, as ExxonMobil tried but failed to do three weeks after the spill. Instead, Venoco explained, it needs to purge its facilities to allow certain inspections scheduled for next month to take place. Those inspections, Venoco stated, are required for it to remain in compliance with existing permits.
The company estimates it would need to haul two truckloads of oil a day for 17 days to complete the job. ExxonMobil, which has stored eight times as much oil as Venoco, sought permits to haul eight trucks an hour out of its Las Flores Canyon facility, 24 hours a day. In its application, Venoco argued that the water “entrained” with the oil and marooned in the company’s infrastructure was “settling to the bottom of the tanks and pipelines, increasing the risk of tank and pipeline corrosion.” To address this, the company said, oil must be removed so repairs can be made. Should trucking be allowed, Venoco stated it would haul the oil to Phillips 66 in Santa Maria or the Crimson Pipeline tank, located in Santa Paula.