Santa Barbara oil platform barrels ahead with drilling despite legal battle

California oil output is climbing — even as Sable Offshore battles to keep its pipeline restart alive.

The company announced it is accelerating output across its California sites as new wells come online Monday, with a third platform set to begin operations later this year.

Shares rose 3.7% in premarket trading, according to Offshore Engineer.

The push follows last month’s restart of oil flows through the pipeline system linking the Santa Ynez offshore platforms to California refineries — a move now at the center of a legal standoff.

Judge Donna Geck of the Santa Barbara Superior Court said last week a state injunction on the gas giant was still in place, blocking it from restarting and handing a win to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The oil giant vowed to fight the “show-cause” process in court next month and pointed out that the president had given it the green light to reopen.

Despite the ongoing battle, production is already on the rise. Forty wells on Platform Harmony and Platform Heritage are now active, each churning out around 750 barrels of oil daily.

Once all 74 wells are operational, output is expected to average roughly 700 barrels per day per well, the outlet reported.

And another boost is on the way, Platform Hondo is expected to begin production in June 2026, with output projected at about 10,000 barrels per day — lifting volumes from the Santa Ynez Unit.

Back in March, Trump signed an executive order to ​resume oil drilling operations off the Southern California coast, citing national energy security concerns.

The order invoked the Cold War-era Defense Production Act, stemming from concerns of limited oil supply from the US war with Iran.

In response to the order, Sable Offshore resumed operations near Santa Barbara at its Santa Ynez offshore oil platform and pipeline.

The pipeline was shuttered in 2015 after a spill released thousands of barrels of crude into the Pacific Ocean.

Environmentalists and anti-Trump Democrats furiously claimed that Trump’s order was “illegal” and that any restart needed approval by state regulators. They sought the temporary injunction, granted in February.