Houston oil company sues over California pipeline leak

By AMY TAXIN
Associated Press

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A Houston-based oil company has sued two container ship operators and an organization that oversees marine traffic, saying they failed to prevent last fall’s underwater pipeline leak off the Southern California coast. Amplify Energy Corp., which owns the pipeline that ruptured, filed the complaint Monday. It claims that in January 2021 two ships dragged their anchors across the pipeline that ferried crude from offshore oil platforms to the coast. The federal court filing also accuses the Marine Exchange of Southern California of failing to route the ships to deeper waters before an impending storm. Amplify already faces various lawsuits over the spill and a criminal charge.