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Posts Tagged ‘negative polluter’

Santa Barbara beach tar reminds us of Platform Holly’s environmental benefits

Posted in California, Offshore Energy - General, seeps, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The cessation of production at Platform Holly 10 years ago has contributed to the periodic surges in natural seepage that soil Santa Barbara area beaches (see the Instagram post above).

The correlation between production at Platform Holly, which lies just offshore from the Univ. of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), and seepage in the Coal Oil Point area (map below) was apparent to those who worked at Holly. That association was confirmed by UCSB studies:

“Emeritus Professor James Boles collected and analyzed decades of data on methane seeping from the seafloor southeast of Platform Holly, just offshore from Isla Vista. He and colleagues Grant Garven at Tufts University and Chris Peltonen at Beacon West Energy Group determined that production of oil and natural gas from the platform reduced natural methane seepage into the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel, confirming earlier regional studies. The findings appear in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology.“

This blog called Platform Holly a “net negative hydrocarbon polluter,“ because production from Holly reduced natural seepage and methane pollution from shallow formations beneath the Channel. Steel subsea pyramids (“tents”) installed by Arco in 1982 collected seafloor methane seepage, an added environmental benefit from the platform operations. As described in a 2014 presentation posted by the California State Lands Commission,“production at Platform Holly has resulted in significant improvement in local air quality.”

Further per UCSB:

After combing through 20 years of data, the authors found that production at Platform Holly significantly reduced the amount of methane seeping into the tents. For example, production from a well drilled 1 kilometer beneath the tents immediately reduced the natural seepage. In contrast, the seepage increased when production ceased from that well. “This indicates a direct link between the oil reservoir and the natural seepage in the area,” Boles noted.

Production at Holly ceased 10 years ago; the tents have been removed and the platform is being decommissioned. However, methane bubbles in the Channel and periodic beach tar will continue to remind us of Holly’s positive environmental legacy.

Map showing areas ( shaded ) of natural oil seeps offshore from Coal Oil Point near Santa Barbara, California. Inset map shows the Channel Islands ( I ) designated SM San Miguel, SR Santa Rosa, SC Santa Cruz, A Anacapa, SN San Nicholas, SB Santa Barbara, and SCL Santa Catalina. Seep fields were mapped between 1946 and 1973 (modified from Hornafius et al. 1999) 

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Decommissioning of Platform Holly – an underwater oasis and “negative polluter”

Posted in California, decommissioning, rigs-to-reefs, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Platform Holly in the Santa Barbara Channel

John Smith informs us that the California State Lands Commission (CSLC) is moving forward with the environmental review for decommissioning Platform Holly. This would be the first platform decommissioning project offshore California since the 1996 Chevron 4-H project which involved the removal of Platforms Hope, Heidi, Hilda and Hazel in state waters.

John comments that the project description, which calls for removing the jacket, seep tents and pipelines, and partially removing the upper 5 feet of the 23-foot-high shell mounds, does not make much sense given the abundant fish and invertebrates that reside on or around the platform jacket. Cutting the jacket off 85 feet below the water line and converting the remaining structure to an artificial reef would make more sense and should have been designated the proposed project. 

The plan is to send the materials to the Ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles or Hueneme or possibly Ensenada, Mexico. The project involves complex logistics and is going to be a very long (3 years), ambitious and expensive project that will likely set a precedent for future platform decommissioning projects.

It’s noteworthy that Platform Holly’s oil and gas production effectively reduced natural seepage and methane emissions from shallow formations beneath the Channel. Holly was thus a “net negative” hydrocarbon polluter.

According to their agreement with the CSLC, Exxon is responsible for the decommissioning costs.

Scientific American: The steel “jackets” that support California’s offshore oil platforms are covered in millions of organisms and provide habitat for thousands of fishes. Joe Platko

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