Safety officials have warned owners of the oil pipeline which ruptured last week that numerous measures must be taken before the line can be restarted.
Work needed includes an in-depth analysis of the factors which may have contributed to the spill.
The corrective action order was issued just a few days after the incident by the US Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration.
However it was not regarded as a disciplinary enforcement sanction against the company.
A detailed and lengthy list of actions will start with the removal of the failed pipeline for metallurgical examination.
A root-cause analysis will also need to be taken, which can explore the direct cause of the failure.
Around 2,500 barrels of crude petroleum spilled onto San Refugio Beach and into the Pacific Ocean about 20 miles west of Santa Barbara.
As much as a fifth of the spilled oil was thought to have reached the ocean, leaving slicks that stretched for more than nine miles.
Two beaches, San Refugio and El Capitan, have been closed indefinitely while crews work to clean-up the spill.
The 24-inch line typically carries about 1,200 barrels of oil an hour from an Exxon Mobile processing facility west of Santa Barbara to a distribution hub in Bakersfield, hundreds of miles away.
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