Venoco has dropped its plans to expand oil drilling from its Platform Holly off the coast of Santa Barbara County.

In a brief letter sent to the California State Lands Commission on Nov. 9 and widely circulated by environmental groups on Nov. 16, Venoco said it “hereby withdraws its application for its Ellwood Full Field Development Project.”

Venoco is based in Denver but has a regional office and major drilling operations in Santa Barbara County. Until its recent withdrawal, it was looking to drill as many as 40 new wells in the Ellwood field, which is a few miles offshore of the UC Santa Barbara campus and the Goleta area known as Ellwood.

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