If the rewards associated with the successful recovery of commercial deposits of oil and gas can realize both meaningful economic and social transformation for beneficiary countries, the risk of mishaps that could amount to nothing short of protracted crisis are ever present, as some of the world’s major oil spill-related occurrences have amply demonstrated. Ask Peru.
A year after a January 15 2022 earthquake caused 6,000 barrels of barrels of oil aboard a ship to spill into Peruvian waters, the effects of the spill are being felt long after the authorities in Lima had declared a national emergency and moved to both effect an emergency clean-up and to engage the Spanish oil company REPSOL on the matter of compensation. It will reportedly cost REPSOL in excess of US$100 million to fix the damage while the Peruvian government has filed a US$4.5 billion lawsuit against the company.
Setting all that aside, the Peruvian authorities continue to be preoccupied with the socio-economic fallout that is still being felt by affected sections of its population, particularly fisher families experiencing lost income. Other sectors of the country’s economy are also affected by the large swathes of the country’s beaches reportedly still remaining ‘off limits’ to the public, while a local fishing port is functioning well below its previous capacity on account of reduced fish stocks. Following the spill, the authorities in Lima had declared an environmental emergency resulting from 6,000 barrels of oil polluting an estimated 700 hectares of water and 180 hectares of coastline. Strong currents have since pushed the leaked oil beyond the areas where it had been originally deposited, adding to the originally inflicted environmental and health-threatening damage.
The immediate-term devastation that manifested itself in the wake of the spill has been supplanted by a longer-term incremental unfolding of a more protracted tragedy for affected Peruvians who have come to recognize that a measure of material compensation cannot make the unavoidable consequences of the tragedy go away.
