Repsol will pay an advance of up to 800 dollars to those affected by the oil spill in Peru

Fishermen affected by the oil spill in Ventanilla, Peru. Martin Mejia (AP)

The Peruvian Prime Minister, Aníbal Torres, and the executive director of Repsol Peru, Jaime Fernández Cuesta, agreed this Friday that the company will pay up to a maximum of 800 dollars as an advance payment of compensation that, according to Repsol, will reach more than 5,000 victims of the Crude oil spill in the sea off the central Peruvian coast occurred on January 15, when a ship unloaded fuel into the underwater pipeline of a company refinery.

The president of the parliamentary commission investigating the environmental disaster expressed concern about the number of people affected, given that no entity has yet determined the total.

According to the Ministry of the Environment, the spill of 11,900 barrels of Brazilian crude affected 116 square kilometers of sea and coastline, including two protected natural areas.

Artisanal fishermen who have lost their jobs for six weeks as a result of the environmental disaster describe the months from January to March as those with the highest income, due to the greater number of species at this time of year.

In addition, thousands of vendors and merchants who worked on 30 beaches -affected since January by oil pollution in the Lima and Callao regions- had made investments to return to work this summer (from January to March) after two years of closure. of beaches as a sanitary measure due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The agreement between the prime minister and the Repsol executive indicates that the parties will draw up a list of those affected in seven business days, and that the company will pay up to 3,000 soles (800 dollars) "according to the economic activity of each person recorded in the single register agreed by the Presidency of Ministers and the La Pampilla Refinery (Repsol Peru)”.

In the week following the spill, in an online conference organized by the College of Engineers of Peru, the fishing engineer Elmer Nieves reported that 200 small boats and some 6,000 artisanal fishermen were registered in the districts affected by the spill, but he specified that the number of victims is higher because an undetermined number fished on the cliffs and islets without being registered in a guild.

On Monday night, 700 families affected by the spill in the Chancay district traveled 50 kilometers to the outside of the La Pampilla refinery and set up a vigil to demand that the company pay them compensation for the 40 days they have not been able to work as fishermen, filleters, stevedores or in the tourism and restaurant industries.

At a press conference on Tuesday they announced that if Repsol did not respond to their demands, they would block access to the refinery's vehicles.

The next day, the company reported that it had reached an agreement with two artisanal fishermen's unions from Chancay and Ancón, to advance 800 dollars on account of the corresponding compensation.

The two agreements with 1,400 fishermen "have as their main commitment a partial advance of economic compensation to mitigate the impact suffered by fishermen," says a statement released by Repsol on Wednesday.

The agreement signed this Friday between the Government and Repsol clarifies that those who have already received "advance for the compensation agreements prior to the signing of this act" will not be included in the "single register".

The company reported that as of Wednesday, it has provided some economic assistance - supermarket vouchers - to 3,991 people who belong to 60 groups of workers.

The number of 5,000 victims established by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and Repsol has surprised the president of the Congress commission investigating the spill, parliamentarian Margot Palacios.

“It is a worrying situation.

How do they establish a certain number today if there are no registers neither from the company nor from the municipalities?”, questioned the congresswoman, consulted by telephone.

The investigative commission has held six sessions in which it has heard presentations from the company, the port authority, the fishermen's unions, and the heads of the various entities involved in the response to the environmental disaster, among other specialists.

"All our meetings have been public, and none of the entities that have attended have determined the total number of people affected by this ecological disaster," he said.

Meanwhile, the FAO and UNDP are preparing a study of the socioeconomic impact of those affected by the spill, which will be ready in May, said the coordinator of the United Nations system in Peru, Igor Garafulic.

The UN representative added that, in parallel, the World Bank is conducting an analysis of the environmental impact of the spill.

For Garafulic, with these evaluations "continuity is achieved between the recommendations initially given by the technical mission of UN experts and that now seek to measure the impact (of the spill)".

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