Repsol on the oil spill: “We thought at the time of the incident that it was something minor”

In a recent interview, the person in charge of the communication field of Repsol, Tine Van Den Wall Bake, He denied any responsibility for the oil spill in the window sea.

“We thought at the time of the incident that it was something minor,” said the manager. This despite the fact that the company has a negative record for providing inaccurate information about a lack of oil control in 2013. The same Agency for Environmental Assessment and Enforcement (OEFA) He denounced the fact by the competent authority.

For his part, Van Den Wall Bake pointed out that the Navy told them that the eruption of the volcano in Tonga did not generate a tsunami alert; Therefore, the representative continues, they continued with the work of loading and unloading oil on the ship.

“When the explosion of the volcano occurs, it is verified that there is no tsunami warning issued. We called and consulted with the Navy maritime traffic unit to see if there was an alert and they confirmed that there was no alert for the coast and that we can continue with the unloading,” he said on RPP.

But nevertheless, the assertion that wave detection is the exclusive responsibility of the Navy is inaccurate. In 2019, Repsol’s La Pampilla refinery specified the details of the installation of its fourth maritime terminal, the sinister scenario today contaminated by oil. The total investment amounted, according to the same multinational, to 109 million dollars.

A monobuoy was installed in Ventanilla, a terminal that allows port operations for crude oil and liquid fuels. In addition, the equipment has a Doppler current measurement system that measures conditions of speed and direction of sea currents. In this sense, it is clear that the installed equipment was able to foresee the waves caused by the explosion of the volcano in Tonga.

Given that both installed systems transmit information via fiber optics to the refinery’s control room, real-time information is available that contributes —although not in this case— to the safety of maritime operations.

Repsol ruled

For its part, Repsol stated in a statement that they are deploying all possible means to remediate the coastline due to the incident in Ventanilla caused by the volcanic eruption in Tonga.