GAVIOTA : Chevron to Challenge Denial of Permit
Chevron Corp. will ask the California Coastal Commission next week to overturn a decision by the commission’s executive director to deny the oil company an emergency permit to ship oil by tanker from Gaviota to Los Angeles.
Chevron will request that the commission cast aside the decision of Executive Director Peter M. Douglas, who last month turned down Chevron’s fifth emergency request to resume tanker shipping.
In requesting the permit, the oil company claimed the Jan. 17 earthquake damaged an oil pipeline and that the company needs to ship by sea to get its product to Los Angeles-area markets.
Douglas said he believed Chevron could not prove an emergency existed since the company has been processing at capacity--about 80,000 barrels per day--from its Point Arguello fields since the earthquake. A company spokesman said Chevron is still able to produce at capacity levels only because oil is being rerouted through other pipelines at a much higher expense.
The company’s shipping permit was suspended by the commission Feb. 1 after it failed to secure a pipeline with all necessary state permits.
Earlier this year, Chevron reached a deal with Pacific Pipeline Inc. to construct a pipeline, but because the project is still undergoing regulatory scrutiny by the California Public Utilities Commission, it failed to meet the Feb. 1 deadline.
Tanker shipping operations were scheduled to cease by Jan. 1, 1996.
The commission will consider the company’s request at its meeting Wednesday in Huntington Beach.
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