Ixtoc I
Ixtoc I was an exploratory oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 km northwest from Ciudad del Carmen in Campeche. On June 3, 1979, the well suffered a blowout and is recognized as the second largest oil spill in history.
In the next few months, experts were brought in to contain and cap the oil well. Approximately an average of ten thousand to thirty thousand barrels per day were discharged into the Gulf until it was finally capped on March 23, 1980. Prevailing currents carried the oil towards the Texas coastline. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets. Mexico rejected US requests to be compensated for cleanup costs.
So what was the largest spill ever? Story here
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Contrary 
The geology of Southern California is seismically unstable. The strata covering oil deposits fracture here all the time. There are tar pits on land and crude leaks into the ocean on the continental shelf.
There are always lumps of tar on the beach. No slicks though. I remember the big drilling days of the early ’60s. There was a lot more oil on the beach then. DDT turned out to be a bigger threat to the environment than oil. I’m not sure what killed off the kelp forests but it wasn’t the oil.