Sable Offshore Seeks & Wins Federal Support via PHMSA
Sables Pipeline Gets a Second Wind from PHMSA Determination
*Prior to Diving into this piece, if you are new to Sable’s story at the bottom of this page I have “Additional Reading” that will give you relevant background on all things Sable which include all of the pieces we have written about Sable over the years - this should help get you up to speed. *
Background
For those that are not well versed in Sable Offshore, please see the links below to read the full history of this 3-year saga. The background I will provide today will be in reference to the jurisdiction of the Office of State Fire Marshal (OSFM) and what Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) just did to bring Sable’s pipeline back into the fold.
Throughout the last 3 years, the jurisdiction over pipeline safety has fallen into the hands of the California OSFM. The consent decree, which was a federal document that determined the pathway to restart was overseen by the OSFM and was the binding entity that brought the rest of the state agencies together to lay out the framework for restart.
The pathway to restart included things like State Waivers for cathodic protection which the OSFM granted, hydrostatic testing which includes surging the pipeline with oil at varying pressures to simulate oil, and finally the submission of the restart plan itself.
The repairs of the pipeline were completed, the hydrotesting done, and the last step in accordance with OSFM’s own process for restart was the signing off of the restart plan and that is where things got tricky. It is important to note there are two fire marshals that Sable was in contact with. The first is Jim Hosler who was the more “local” fire marshal who was in charge of the day-to-day technical analysis of the pipeline itself.
The second fire marshal is Dan Berlant who sits in Sacramento and is much more of a political figure rather than pipeline safety specialist. Being that Berlant is in Sacramento, and he is appointed by the governor he was always in the pocket of Newsom. For the last few years myself, and many others assumed Newsom was more or less indifferent to the restart of the pipeline, and that by ignoring it and letting it come online he could claim cheaper energy for the state that would help him in the 2028 Presidential run he would make. This turned out to be untrue.
