Peru demands Repsol compensates oil spill victims

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo on Monday asked Repsol to compensate those affected by a January oil spill in the Pacific, after his government sued the energy company for $4.5 million.

Following the spill, the government in March said that Repsol had agreed to pay $805 to each of those affected, as part of a round of compensation.

The company has insisted that about $7.8 million has been paid so far to 5,500 people.

However, the government announced it was suing Repsol on Friday.

The company then responded by saying that the lawsuit was unfounded because the estimates "lacked the slightest basis to support the figures indicated."

The government had indicated in its civil lawsuit for damages that it represented the interests of about 700,000 parties.

Speaking about the clean up operation, Castillo said that the Ministry of the Environment had "precise instructions to supervise the cleaning of the ecosystem" which impacted about 106 square kilometres, killed marine animals and polluted the sea along the country's coast.

The spill occurred on January 15 and lasted at least eight minutes during the unloading of oil from the Italian-flagged ship Mare Doricum to a Repsol refinery.

Peru has claimed that the spill of 11,900 barrels of crude oil into one of the most biodiverse seas in the world is the "worst ecological disaster" in its history.