Tankers Carrying Crude Oil Without OK

Exxon Corp. has been quietly shipping monthly tanker loads of crude oil west of the Channel Islands since October without permission of industry regulators, federal and state officials said Thursday.

Environmentalists thought that they had secured a victory in October, 1993, when the oil giant decided to abandon its efforts to ship its Santa Ynez Unit field oil through the ecologically sensitive Santa Barbara Channel.

But it was disclosed last week that regulators had discovered that the company was shipping 200,000 barrels a month from San Francisco to Los Angeles via a route west of the islands aboard the Exxon-owned tanker R/S Baytown. Regulators ordered Exxon to stop the shipments by May 1 or face heavy penalties.

The issue is scheduled to come up today when company representatives meet in Camarillo with officials of the federal Minerals Management Service, the California Coastal Commission and Santa Barbara County.

The company started sending crude oil from its Santa Ynez Unit offshore oil fields to San Francisco via pipeline to a refinery in October. Some of that oil, however, has been pumped aboard the 780-foot-long Baytown at San Francisco and shipped south to refineries near Los Angeles Harbor.

“I think we’ve been betrayed,” said Robert Sollen, a spokesman for the 5,000-member Ventura and Santa Barbara County-based Los Padres chapter of the Sierra Club.

“Exxon has fought using pipelines for years,” Sollen said. “I hope they get a good solid warning, and if they do it again they should be hit hard with heavy fines. This company clearly just does not care about what’s at stake here should there be an accident.”

But Exxon officials contended that they have the legal right to move their oil by tanker ship when overland pipelines leading to the Los Angeles area are at capacity.