A Peruvian court imposed a 15-month ban on four managers of the Spanish oil company Repsol from leaving the country for 15 months due to a crude oil spill at sea on January 15, the judiciary reported.
“The Transitional Preparatory Investigation Court of the Puente Piedra-Ventanilla Court issued an impediment to leave the country for 15 months against Carlos Payva, Sebastián Guzmán, José Marín and Roberto Wong, officials of the La Pampilla Refinery,” where the spill occurred, the judiciary reported on its Twitter account.
“Those cited above are investigated for the alleged crime of environmental pollution aggrieved by the State,” he added.
Two weeks after the spill, the court banned four other company executives from leaving the country for 18 months, including the president of Repsol Peru, Spaniard Jaime Fernández-Cuesta Luca de Tena. Everyone else is Peruvian.
The four affected by the measure issued this Monday are being investigated because they had direct functions with the maintenance of Terminal 2 of the La Pampilla refinery, where the crude oil leak occurred.
In addition, they were directly responsible for implementing the contingency plan, which was allegedly deployed late after the fuel leak.
The January 15 spill, described as an “ecological disaster” by the Peruvian government, occurred while the Italian-flagged “Mare Doricum” tanker was unloading at the La Pampilla refinery in Ventanilla, 30 kilometers north of Lima, owned by Repsol.
According to the company, the accident was due to the “uncontrolled movement” of the tanker after the waves caused by the volcanic eruption in Tonga.
The black spot of crude oil was washed north by sea currents up to about 140 kilometers from the refinery, according to the prosecutor's office, causing the death of an unknown number of fish, birds and marine mammals. In addition, it left hundreds of artisanal fishermen temporarily out of work.
The Ministry of the Environment estimates that at least 1,400 hectares of land and sea have been affected, and some 500 hectares of protected nature reserves have been affected.
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