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# A crude awakening for Californians
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/a-crude-awakening-for-californians-editor/
- Published: 2007-12-13T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T04:23:23.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Hans Laetz Santa Monica*

Nice front page photo of the man talking on his cell phone on the beach (“Let it rain,” Dec. 11). Those two ships out behind him in telephoto squeeze are not military ships doing exercises in the bay, however, as the caption maintains.

Those are oil tankers, unloading crude oil from Asia or Arab nations, into undersea pipelines for the El Segundo and other local oil refineries. Those tankers travel out just beyond the edge of the 200-mile U.S. economic zone boundary and siphon off crude oil from supertanker oil carriers that are too big to dock in Southern California. This transfer of raw, crude oil on the high seas is unregulated and largely unknown by Californians.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 13, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/121307.pdf?ref=smdp.com)