Leaky pipe ours, admits Petron

PETRON CORP. has owned up to last week’s oil spill in Cavite, which affected mostly the municipalities of Rosario and Tanza.

In a statement, the country’s top oil company took responsibility for the incident and said it would clean up the affected areas to restore the livelihood of the affected communities.

“At this stage, we take responsibility for this unfortunate incident. We sincerely apologize and assure all the communities affected that we will strive to resolve the situation at the soonest possible time,” the statement said.

Petron said it was pursuing a proper remediation and cleanup of the areas affected to restore the means of livelihood of the local communities.

“In the meantime, we will continue to give the assistance needed by residents affected by the spill,” Petron president Lubin B. Nepomuceno said in the statement.

Over the weekend, Petron said seaborne and aerial surveys had shown no indication of an oily sheen following the diesel spill reported on Friday, suggesting that the diesel had evaporated.

But on Friday afternoon, Petron said it spotted an oily sheen near the vessel M/T Makisig of its third-party contractor which “had just finished discharging diesel at its Rosario terminal in Cavite.”

The company said it immediately deployed an “oil spill response team” to assess the extent of the oily sheen and begin containment and recovery operations. At the time, Petron said tests at its depot in Rosario had bared no leaks.

On Friday evening, however, Petron said it would look into the Philippine Coast Guard’s (PCG) report that divers had found leaks in the company’s underwater pipeline. It added that diesel disperses and evaporates quickly, and that “there (was) no danger to the environment and the local community.

On Sunday, Petron said it had sent a medical team to Rosario to serve the needs of the community.

“Meanwhile, food packs are ready for distribution. We are working closely with (the local governments) of Rosario and Tanza to address the needs of their constituents and continue to survey the needs of other areas that may have been affected,” the oil company added.

The company said it had engaged a third-party to regularly conduct test samples of the soil, water and marine life quality in the affected areas.

Yesterday, Commander Armand Balilo, PCG spokesperson said that divers had “found the leak” in a submerged pipeline of Petron off the coast of Cavite, indicating that it was the source of last week’s oil spill that adversely affected at least four coastal towns of Cavite.

“Our divers are scheduled to make a final dive today (Monday) to again pinpoint and document the leak in the Petron pipe,” he said.

Balilo, who also heads the PCG public affairs office, said they had directed the PCG men to take underwater footage of the leak just to make sure and confirm their finding.”

The PCG official said on Sun- day that its divers would conduct an operation to check if the diesel oil flowed out of a submerged pipeline or a tanker moored off the municipality of Rosario.

Commodore Joel Garcia, Marine Environmental Command (MEC) head, said Friday that a leaking submarine pipeline belonging to Petron had caused the Manila Bay oil spill.

In a statement, Garcia said “our personnel discovered a leak continuously flowing out of the submerged Petron pipeline.” He did not provide other details.

The spill was first spotted about three kilometers off the coast of Rosario on Thursday afternoon.

Cavite Gov. Juanito Remulla earlier downplayed the effects of the oil spill and told reporters: “There were no evident signs of a fishkill, no damage to properties, although we are still waiting for the results of the marine tests.”

Remulla also claimed that only 90,000 liters of diesel oil had spilled into the waters off the towns of Rosario, Naic, Tanza and Ternate, but a subsequent aerial survey conducted by the Coast Guard showed that an estimated 500,000 liters of diesel may have leaked into the polluted bay.

Meanwhile, the left-leaning fisherfolk group Pamalakaya, (or the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas), called for an independent inquiry into the Cavite oil spill as it accused both Malacañang and the Coast Guard of being “biased for Petron Corp.”

With reports from Jerry E. Esplanada, Ronnel W. Domingo and Maricar Cinco, Inquirer Southern Luzon