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In response to a question, Mr. Willsher suggested that an anchor may have hit the pipeline. He said workers at his company first saw the oil shine on Saturday morning and began work to contain the spill. But some energy experts said the company should find out about the leak before oil appears, as gauges that monitor pressure in the pipeline should alert authorities.
Captain Rebecca Ore of the U.S. Coast Guard said oil was found from Huntington Beach to Laguna Beach and that the agency was helping to contain the spill with scrapers. The agency was running flights and reviewing patterns to determine the direction of oil heading south.
Newport Beach Mayor Brad Avery said on Monday “very little oil” had landed. “I think the worst – and I say this with caution – may be over.”
Amplify announced in August that it is running new tubing designed to improve production and protect against leaks. Production expansion of its California subsidiary, Beta Offshore, was scheduled to begin in September.
University of Houston finance professor Ed Hirs, who specializes in oil transportation, said he didn’t think the piping operation had anything to do with the spill. It turned out that the leak was in a separate shipping pipeline running along the seafloor.
“What bothers me is that the leak went undetected for so long,” said Mr. Hirs. “The company should have identified the loss in print as soon as possible,” he added. “They should know they can’t be so lifeless.”
Beta Offshore suffered a 2,000-gallon leak from a pipeline between two platforms named Eureka and Elly in 1999, according to Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit group in Bellingham, Wash. He was fined $48,000. Beta Offshore also received four federal compliance violations or warnings involving sourcing, valves, and risk management procedures from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, a federal agency that was part of the Department of Transportation between 2008 and 2010.
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