Huge fines for environmental damage after tanker wreck in Kerch Strait

The Arbitration Court of the Krasnodar Territory ruled on the claims of Rosprirodnadzor against the owners of the tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, which crashed in the Kerch Strait on December 15 last year. The court ordered the defendants to pay huge sums in compensation for the damage caused to the environment.

The scale of the disaster and court decisions:

An accident involving tankers carrying about 9.2 thousand tons of fuel oil led to the spill of approximately 2.4 thousand tons of petroleum products into the sea (according to the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation). As a result, the court recovered 49.46 billion rubles from the owner of the Volgoneft-212 vessel (Kamatransoil LLC) and its charterer (Kama Shipping LLC), as well as 10 million rubles of state duty. Volgatransneft, the owner of the Volgoneft-239 tanker, is obliged to pay 35.5 billion rubles and 10 million rubles of state duty. The total amount of penalties amounted to almost 85 billion rubles.

It is worth noting that a week earlier, the Anapa administration increased its claims against tanker owners to 647.43 million rubles due to the conclusion of new contracts to eliminate the consequences of the oil spill. This highlights the scale of the environmental damage and the costs of its elimination.

Separately, about the cleaning method:

The second news regarding the development of a new effective purification method, which is planned to be used in the extraction of "difficult" oil in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, has no direct connection with the case in the Kerch Strait and is given without context. For a more complete picture, additional clarification of information about the connection between these events is necessary.

The case of the wreck of the Volgoneft tankers demonstrates the severity of the consequences of environmental disasters and significant financial risks for companies that do not ensure the safety of maritime transportation. The amounts collected are one of the largest fines for environmental damage in the history of Russia. The need to develop and implement more effective methods of preventing such accidents, as well as improving technologies for eliminating the consequences of oil product spills, is obvious.