Sable Offshore Oil Corp., the Houston-based oil company that restarted the controversial Santa Ynez Pipeline off the Santa Barbara coastline in 2025, warned it could stop operations within a year after its sole buyer of crude oil, Chevron, temporarily halted its purchase of the energy source.
Chevron temporarily curtailed its purchase of crude oil in October because of maintenance and upgrades to storage tanks at its refinery — a move that sent Sable’s stocks plummeting 60.5% to a new record-low on Monday.
In the interim, Sable reduced its production of crude oil and diversified its customer base to three additional refineries in the Los Angeles area, according to a Nov. 9 Securities and Commissions Filing.
Sable maintained that it expects Chevron to resume purchasing crude oil soon but expressed doubt about the timing and volume, thus undermining efforts to increase its sales to other refineries.
“As a result of these developments, the Company does not expect to have sufficient liquidity to meet its obligations as they become due in the near term,” Sable stated in its Nov. 9 SEC filing. “Accordingly, management has concluded that substantial doubt exists regarding the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern within one year…”
The oil company went two-and-a-half weeks in October without any crude oil sales, Sable CEO Jim Flores disclosed in a Nov. 9 investor call.
“We had a goal, in first quarter, of starting to diversify our refinery customers for our crude oil,” Flores said on the call. “Obviously, in October, it blew up in our face, and we’re very apologetic to that. I would think after 45 years I should know better. But I kind of fell asleep because of our close relationship there.”
The financial woes put an abrupt pause in Sable’s momentum generated by the Trump administration, which in March invoked war time powers for Sable to restart production of crude oil at its Santa Ynez Pipeline Unit off the Gaviota coast. It’s the same pipeline that ruptured and caused hundreds and thousands of crude oil to spill into the Pacific Ocean, reaching the shores of Refugio Beach, in 2015.
