Nearly 11,000 barrels of crude were dumped off the coast of Peru. Photo: REUTERS
Four months after the environmental disaster caused by the oil spill in northern Peru, the government of that country filed a lawsuit against the company Repsol for $ 4.5 billion for damage caused.
The proposal was sponsored by Peru’s National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) because of the pollution generated after the oil spill that occurred last year. January 15 at a refinery operated by a Spanish oil company and affected twenty beaches off the coast of Peru.
“We have filed this lawsuit in accordance with the rules of the Civil Code, which establish that anyone who operates a dangerous property or by engaging in a dangerous activity, and causes harm to others, is obliged to pay him , “said Indecopi director Julián Palacín in a video released by the institution.
The oil spill, calculated at approximately 11,000 barrelsaffected 700,000 inhabitants and caused the closure of dozens of beaches, shops, restaurants and tourist services during the summer, in addition to affecting fishing activity.
The fine is $ 3,000 million for damages caused, plus $ 1,500 million for moral damages to consumers, users and those affected, a number that the judge must specify at the time of resolution.
“The bias and moral damage suffered by the population of that area are protected by the decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” Palacín said.
He concluded by announcing that this was the first case in Peru in which an international oil company had been sued for civil liability in defending the interests of the population, and said it could be “a unique jurisprudential precedent “in the country.
A civil claim for compensation for damages was filed in the 27th Civil Court of the Superior Court of Justice of Lima against six defendants: Repsol SA (Spain), Mapfre Global Risks (Spain), Mapfre Peru Insurance and Reinsurance Companies ( Peru), La Pampilla Refinery (Peru), Transtotal Maritime Agency (Peru) and Fratelli dŽamico Armatori (Italy).
The truth
The Repsol crude oil spill occurred on Jan. 15 of this year at La Pampilla Refinery, about 20 kilometers from Lima, and was defined by the UN “as the worst ecological disaster in the country’s history.”
As the company reported at the time, the accident occurred in the process of reducing the ship “Mare Dorium” with the Italian flag, probably due to the violence of the waves due to volcanic eruption in tonga.
The Ministry of Environment reported that the disaster affected approximately 100 kilometers of coastlinewhile the oil slick covers an area of approximately 11.9 square kilometers between the sea and the coast.
Repsol indicated that the amount of crude discarded reached 10,396 barrels of oil (1.65 million liters), a figure higher than the 6,000 barrels first reported by the company and slightly less than 11,900 barrels (1, 9 million liters) estimated by the Ministry of Environment.
La Pampilla Refinery has a processing capacity of 117,000 barrels per day, more than half of Peru’s total refining volume.
Repsol participates in that country in four exploration and production blocks for natural gas and related liquids, with the extraction of 46,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, representing 12% of the country’s production and 7% of the acquisition of Repsol, according to data from the Spanish company.
These include the Camisea Consortium, whose gas field — the most important in Peru — has 14.3 TCF reserves, and in which Repsol has a 10% stake.
With information from agencies
GRB
Source: Clarin
