5 Unanswered Questions from Repsol; Report from Finanzas con Derechos
On 15 January 2022, there was a major oil spill off the coast of Peru during the unloading of the tanker at a refinery owned by Repsol.
The spill was attributed to a series of maintenance oversights and failures in the unloading process, which resulted in approximately 12,000 barrels of oil being released into the sea. Peruvian authorities considered this incident as the worst ecological disaster in Peru’s recent history, due to the devastating effects on the local population, marine ecosystems and the country’s economy.
In compliance with its obligations and responsibilities Repsol has to assess, remedy and compensate for the damages to the environment and to human rights that the spill caused. However, the true magnitude of the disaster is still not known. Although Repsol has taken some unilateral steps towards compensation, it has not published its human rights and environmental impact assessment report.
The main aim of this paper carried out by Fair Finance Peru and partners is to provide key information for Repsol to restore the social and environmental damage it caused with the 2022 spill, as well as to outline the consequences of an inadequate crisis response. This paper critically analyses the crisis management by the company and the Peruvian state and highlights five key issues that remain unresolved: the lack of transparency, the lack of environmental remediation, the lack of sufficient compensation, the lack of gender mainstreaming and the lack of improvements in human rights policy.
