The penalties come after an investigation by The Desert Sun and ProPublica found that companies were profiting from illegal spills and California’s oversight of the industry was lax.

Oil giant Chevron has agreed to pay a record-setting $13 million to two California agencies for past oil spills, but some of the company’s spills are ongoing.

The fines, announced Wednesday, come more than three years after an investigation by The Desert Sun and ProPublica found that oil companies are profiting from illegal spills and that oversight of the industry by California’s oil and gas division was lax.

At least one of Chevron’s spills is still running 21 years after it began in a Kern County oilfield, although a state spokesperson said it has been reduced by 98% “from its peak.” The amount spilled from the site, dubbed GS-5, is larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster.

The crude collected from GS-5 generated an estimated $11.6 million in just three years, The Desert Sun and ProPublica found. In fact, rather than stopping potentially deadly inland spills, known as surface expressions, oil companies have routinely tried to contain them with netting or pieces of metal and used more than 100 of them as unpermitted oil production sites in Kern and Santa Barbara counties.

  • @girlfreddyOP
    51•2 months ago

    The fine should have been $13 Billion instead.

  • @[email protected]
    39•2 months ago

    Damn a record fine and it’s fucking pennies to Chevron. They make $13 million of revenue every 35 minutes.

    • @[email protected]
      12•2 months ago

      But it’s the biggest ever, therefore the peasants should feel much gratitude for their magnanimous government!

  • strawberry
    30•2 months ago

    I was pretty happy, until I saw 13 mil. that’s just the cost of business to them

    fine those fuckers into the ground. a whole quarters worth of income

    though I’m sure they’d find a way to cut THW employees pay and pay the CEO even more

  • Flying Squid
    29•2 months ago

    a record-setting $13 million

    I don’t know what’s more pathetic- that they were fined $13 million or that’s it’s a record fine.

    Somehow we can get a judge to put Trump on the hook for 3/4 of a billion dollars and Alex Jones for over a billion but Chevron? The amount of money they probably make in a couple of days if that.

  • @[email protected]
    19•2 months ago

    And it still means literally nothing. Either high level execs go to jail or nothing will ever change.

    In the fourth quarter of 2023 Chevron made $6.9 billion. Their fine is 0.19% of the money they made in one fucking quarter.

  • @[email protected]
    15•2 months ago

    This part is hilarious in a sad way:

    At least one of Chevron’s spills is still running 21 years after it began in a Kern County oilfield, although a state spokesperson said it has been reduced by 98% “from its peak.” The amount spilled from the site, dubbed GS-5, is larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster.

    It’s reduced because it’s been leaking for 21 years! It’s bound to stop flowing as aggressively as when it first started.

  • @[email protected]
    12•2 months ago

    For every oil spill they have to pay 25% of their profits from the last year or their projected profits from the current year.

  • Das_Bruno
    10•2 months ago

    “CalGEM got revenue too — the agency is completely funded by the industry it regulates, and this year will receive 67 cents for every barrel of oil produced”. Big problem.