Archive for the 'Lessons/Resources' Category

Petron takes responsibilty for the oil spill as a response to the online petition of Greenpeace. Read the file here. They said they are working with the IOPC for the siphoning of the remaining bunker fuel and are “are focusing their efforts to create alternative livelihood programs” but did not explicitly say how much they are investing on these programs. Siphoning of the bunker fuel is reported to cost around 12 Billion while the IOPC Compensation would amount to 300 million pesos.

Blast from the Past: Take a look at Total Fina’s press release here, where they explicitly enumerated how much they are going to invest for rebuilding communities and the siphoning of the oil from the tanker. Below is the text version:

TOTALFINA will finance the pumping of the Erika – TOTALFINA will set up an emergency fund to assist cleaning up the shore(Dec. 30, 99)

TOTALFINA, which has worked with the authorities since the beginning within the framework of the Polmar Mer and Polmar Terre plans, has accelerated and strengthened its involvement by making the following two commitments:

1. TOTALFINA will finance the pumping of the Erika wreckage

TOTALFINA will directly finance the pumping of the fuel oil contained in the Erika wreckage. This will enable the compensation budget from insurers and the IOPC-International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (which amounts to FRF 1.2 billion or EUR 183 million) to be dedicated first to indemnifying people who have suffered economic damage and to reimbursing costs incurred in cleaning up sea and land pollution. TOTALFINA will provide assistance so that operations are carried out under the best technical conditions and in a timely manner, subject to weather conditions.

2. TOTALFINA will set up a FRF 40 million (EUR 6.1 million) emergency fund to assist cleaning up the shore

This fund will be allocated to two programs conducted in agreement with authorities in the affected districts and regions.

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1) Nicasio I. Alcantara – Chairman of Petron. Petron hires Holcim to take out debris from Guimaras (Oliver Mendoza of the Guardian wrote an Australian company offered to do the services for free.)

2) Tomas I. Alcantara – listed as a Board Director of Holcim. See this document. (page 3 – lists him as a director
page 13 – provides a professional background which includes the ff: that he is the President and Chairman of Alsons Consolidated Resources and former Undersecretary of DTI)

3) Alcantara and Sons were also listed as a stockholder (no. 57) in this document

4) The Holcim Quarterly Report (June 2006) (p10) reported the company generated 3.7 billion in revenues this year but its 5.8% lower than in 2005 due to low market demand. The company’s total assets as of June 2006 was P26.4 billion, a P740 million decrease from Dec 31, 2005.

Oliver Mendoza? has listed the ff: article in the Guardian on his blog where Virginia Ruivivar, Petron Public Affairs Manager Officer denied any connection between Nicasio I. Alcantara and Alisons Cement Incorporated). For the article “Petron pays P/7 click here“.

Wanted: a Film Documentary that will expose the politics behind the Guimaras oil spill. Read this report (background on the Erika sinking) from the BBC.To watch the video, click here (report by Tom Mangold). Some excerpts:

“Italian businessman Giuseppe Savarese, having eventually been identified as the owner of the Erika, is now facing criminal charges in France and has a 1 million bail on this head.”

“RINA accepts some of the responsibility but also points the finger at the Malta authorities, where the ship was flagged.”

“Lino Vassallo of the Malta Maritime Authority passes the buck straight back. He insists that whatever went wrong wasn’t their fault.”

‘I was thinking, what kind of system is this?’ the Captain told Correspondent at his home port of Bombay, ‘What about the other players? For no fault of my own I am being put in prison! I am only operating the ship and I am the one was is jailed. I am not the one who owned the ship. What about the rest?’

To read the transcript of the background video, click here.

In In the year 1999, the Erika Oil Spill in France rocked the whole world. The 25-year old Erika MT tanker broke into two and sank off the Brittany coast of France, leaking almost 14,000 tons of fuel and damaging 400 km. (240 miles) of coastline. The events spurred international in-depth reports, like the BBC documentary that showed a highly accurate portrayal of what was wrong with the international maritime industry.

In the beginning, Total Fina, the French oil company that owned the oil transported by Erika, denied any responsibility for the oil spill. This instigated French public outrage, while three major European countries started a boycott against the company. Suffering from public pressure and the threat of legal action in the French courts, Total Fina eventually admitted responsibility for the environmental disaster.

Many hoped that another Erika would never happen, but on Aug. 11, 2005, a tiny island in the Philippines named Guimaras suffered the same fate. In the role of Total Fina was a Philippine oil company named Petron. Petron is jointly owned by the Philippine government (30 percent), Saudi Aramco (40 percent), and other private stakeholders. More than 1 million liters of bunker fuel leaked from MT Solar I, the tanker hauling the Petron oil, damaging almost 300 km. (180 miles) of coastline and hectares of mangroves, while displacing 26,000 people, most of whom were fishermen who depended upon the sea for livelihood.

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Learning from the Erika Oil Spill. Above: An ad condemning, Total Fina, the French oil company, as responsible for the Erika Oil Spill (2001). The French public branded them as FATAL. In the end the French oil company admitted responsibility and had to pay for both the clean up costs and the siphoning of the Erika tanker. They also set up an emergency fund to help the communities affected and to promote back tourism in Brittany, France. (We will publish this in another entry.)

Excerpt from OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Jan 2001) provided by field.org.uk

CONSEQUENCES FOR RESPECTIVE PARTIES

THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT HAS CHARGED – Giuseppe Savarese (the beneficial owner of the Erika), Panship (the vessel’s ship-manager) and RINA (the vessel’s classification society) with putting lives in danger and causing marine pollution. The Master of the ship was similarly charged but later released.

RINA? SUED eleven organisations in connection with their roles in the sinking of the Erika. These include: the registered owner (Tevere Shipping), Panship, the charterer (TotalFina), the ship-owner’s P&I club (Steamship Mutual), the IOPC and the French government. This action was served in Augusta, Sicily on 12 April 2000.

TEVERE SHIPPING has been sued for a reported US$4 million by TotalFina for the loss of its heavy fuel oil cargo, this action being filed in Dunkirk. The liabilities of the ship-owner in terms of oil pollution damage – despite the evident failings of the vessel are confined to the limits specified in the Civil Liability Convention. This would amount to around US$12.3 million. Moreover, even this is prospectively recoverable from the owner’s P&I club, Steamship Mutual.

BENEFICIAL OWNER GIUSSEPE SEVARESE? ? reportedly owes the vessel’s crew for three months unpaid wages, and is likely to be sued for the recovery of these monies.The vessel operator and ship-manager Amarship and Panship respectively have no liability for oil pollution damage under IMO conventions. Nonetheless, the French government is pursuing legal action against the latter, as well as against the beneficial owner, Giuseppe Savarese.

PANSHIP also stands to lose its ISM certification, based on recommendations by RINA to the Maltese and Italian authorities.

SELMONT INTERNATIONAL, as time-charterer of the Erika, has similarly not incurred any known liabilities arising from the loss of the vessel. As it is not the registered owner of the ship, it is exempt from any claims arising from oil pollution damage.

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Excerpt from the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Jan 2000) (provided by Cristophe Scwharte of field.org.uk)

EXAMPLE: ERIKA CASE HISTORY (Background)

On DECEMBER 12, 1999, the 1975-built, 37,283 dwt, Maltese-flag dirty product tanker Erika broke up in heavy seas in the Bay of Biscay, around 40 nautical miles off the coast of Brittany. In doing so, it precipitated one of the worst cases of maritime pollution in European waters seen in recent years.

Although the volume of oil spilt was modest by the standards of previous high-profile tanker accidents (around 15,000 tonnes), the highly persistent nature of its heavy fuel oil cargo led to extremely severe pollution, covering around 400 km of coastline. Six months later, recovery of the remaining cargo still aboard the ship and treatment of the resulting pollution were both still in progress.

After the oil spill, TotalFina – the charterer of the Erika was subject to particularly severe criticism. This was because, apart from being a single-hulled tanker, the ship was a flag-of convenience vessel that had changed ownership several times, was controlled by a Malta-based brass plate ship-owner and had undergone several changes of classification society.

In addition, it has emerged that the ship had been built to a very light scantling design and had a lightweight that was some 1,000 tonnes below that of similar tonnage. The advanced age of the Erika was a particular source of ensuing criticism both from the French and EC authorities.

The fate of the Erika demonstrated the shortcomings of the shipping industry’s existing regulator mechanisms in that, although old by the standards of the tanker fleet, the ship was still in class, had ISM certification and had only undergone annual survey by RINA shortly before its final voyage.

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To view the entire document, click the picture above. Below is also a text version of the article.

“The Erika, a tanker carrying approximately 30,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, broke into two sections about 45 miles south of Brittany’s Finisterre peninsula. Around 14,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil leaked into the Atlantic, and 14,600 tonnes of oil remained trapped in the sunken sections of the hold. TotalFina owned the oil; Panship Management and Services owned the vessel. The legal view at TotalFina was that the company was not responsible; it was the responsibility of the vessel owner, of whom no one had ever heard.”

“The fact that the TotalFina? brand was a household name around the world and that its reputation was its most important asset mattered not a jot, said the lawyers. The only response of any importance, according to the legal view, was to be seen as not liable. In other words, to do absolutely nothing. Big, huge mistake. Within two weeks, the company’s share price had fallen 5%, the French Government had intervened and demanded that TotalFina take some positive action and the company’s boss, Thierry Desmarest, had been savaged by the newspaper Le Figaro in a way that no French businessman has been before or since.”

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I I have unearthed a document/study done by the international organization Friends of the Earth for the Prestige Oil Spill (Galicia, Spain, 2002) and there are really disturbing facts that would make you scream of disgust for all the political shenanigans concocted for the sake of the oil industry. Let’s start off with the mother of all evils, the International Liability Regime. The study says the 1969 Civil Liability EXPLICITLY makes the ship owner liable to pay up to 80 million dollars but exempts the oil company from any liability. This legal loophole is responsible for the bad practices in both the oil and the shipping industry.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE OIL SPILL FUND?

LACK OF CLEAR ACCOUNTABILITY – The so-called Corporate veil. Corporations hide their liabilities and accountability through subsidiaries and the confusing maze of insurance, flag ownership and flags of convenience.

NO ENVIRONMENTAL COVER. The Fund can pay up to 1 billion dollars (as of 2004) US dollars for clean up costs and loss of income for those directly affected but it does not pay for compensation for environmental damage. (This might also preclude victims who do not show any sign of health risks at the time of the claim.)

THE REPUTATION OF IOPC – Although the study was made for Prestige oil spill, it shows that the? IOPC is known to reduce payouts and dispute compensation claims. It took almost 7 years for local people affected by the Braer Oil Spill to claim from the fund.

THE IMO – The International Maritime Organization, a UN Agency is responsible for regulating environmental safety decisions on oil transport, but? shipping regulations? are decided on by states which have vested interests and favor low tax/low standard flags of convenience.

ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS GREATER – Environmental risks are greater due to globalization but the rules of accountability remains underdeveloped.

WHAT MUST BE DONE

SPEAK UP – Learn from the Erika Oil spill in France (1999). Public pressure has forced oil companies responsible for the Erika Oil Spill to pay for compensation. (More than 20,000 to 40,000 people demonstrated for more protection and better response)

Please read this article too.

PUBLIC PRESSURE ON OUR COURTS- The? European courts (Erika oil spill) have forced the IMO (International Maritime Organization) to ban single hulled vessels (total phase out 2015) and to increase the compensation fund up to 1 billion dollars.

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I was about to post a list of First World Countries that are helping us with the oil spill plight when it dawned on me that I’m back at pre-school and can just literally count them with my fingers. (Now, as you well know, first world countries are the no. 1 pollutants in the world and consume more oil than we do.) The same countries above are generous donors to the Oil Spill Compensation Fund with Japan being the principal donor. Smelling where the money is, Pinoy Politicians have been surely raving about the Oil Spill Fund to make us feel we’re already saved but are actually distracting us from the real issue and giving us people false hopes!

Well, unfortunately, the Oil Spill Compensation Fund only pay clean-up costs but not pay for the environmental damage caused by the oil-spill! And what’s more, Inquirer reports said we are not even sure if we are gonna get a piece of the cake!

“The IOPCF, however, did not specify whether the people who became ill from the oil pollution could file claims for compensation or remuneration of expenses for treatment of their conditions.

In its March 2006 manual, the IOPCF said that to be entitled to compensation, the damage must result from oil pollution and must have caused a quantifiable economic loss.”

Cristoph Schwarte, staff lawyer of FIELD, has answered our query regarding legal assistance for the victims of Guimaras. FIELD or Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development is a non-governmental organisation based in the United Kingdom whose aim is to bring together public international lawyers committed to the promotion of environmental protection and sustainable development through law. We are publishing his letter as a whole:

“Your letter raises a number of complex legal issues which are difficult to address without further detailed information on the condition of the MT Solar I, the applicable laws in the Philippines and other relevant circumstances. Our organization is specialized on international environmental law and we therefore cannot provide advice on domestic laws, i.e. best venues and admissibility criteria for filing a class action. A network of practicing lawyers such as elaw (http://www.elaw.org/) may be better equipped to do this.”

“However the following comments may help you to develop a legal strategy: In general and depending on the circumstances of a case the liability for damages caused through an oil spills lies primarily with the registered ship owner, the flag state, the master of the vessel and/or the ship classification society (which has certified the vessel’s compliance with technical rules). The cargo owner’s liability resulting from the failure to charter a safe and properly operated vessel is usually more difficult to establish. The strict liability of the oil owner (regardless of negligence) depends on the relevant domestic law (Philippines) and rather is the exception. This does not apply to damages subsequently incurred in connection with cleaning up services possibly commissioned by Petron Corporation.”

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