In the early hours of Dec. 22, 2024, fishermen working in the Talara Sea in northern Peru hauled in their nets. But instead of the day’s catch, they found oil impregnating their gear. Hours later the disaster was confirmed: The tide had moved a huge oil spill northward, and it had now coated 10 kilometers (6 miles) of coastline in black.

The day after the spill, state oil company Petroperú said in its first report to the national environmental regulator, OEFA, that it had detected a leak of 0.9 barrels — 140 liters, or 37 gallons — in a pipeline at the maritime cargo terminal of its New Talara Refinery, located in the city of Talara in the department of Piura.

Three days after the spill, on Dec. 25, the environment ministry declared a 90-day environmental emergency, paralyzing tourism and fishing activity in the waters off the affected coastline — waters that more than 4,000 artisanal fishers depend on for their daily sustenance.

Now, more than three months later, the fishers have returned to work on a sea dominated by the oil industry. They say the compensation they received from Petroperú for the weeks they couldn’t bring fish to their tables due to the oil pollution is insufficient and they are seeking more. For its part, the company says it has met its commitments.

The other Talareños

“When I was little and started fishing, at the age of 10, I saw large quantities of oil spilled into that sea,” Tulio Chapilliquen, an artisanal fisherman and tourism entrepreneur from the municipality of Lobitos, north of Talara, told Mongabay. Tulio, now 56, witnessed the time before any environmental regulations constrained the oil companies. These first came to the region more than a century ago, but environmental legislation wasn’t introduced until the 2000s.

Although in general the situation has improved since Chapilliquen’s childhood, the recent spill was “just like the one I saw [as a child],” he said.

In December OEFA reported the spill affected about 1 hectare (2.5 acres) of surface water and impacted the beaches of La Capullana, El Anchón, La Palizada and La Bola. Jhan Carlo Paiva, head of conversion at the New Talara Refinery, later said it wasn’t just 0.9 barrels that had spilled, as Petroperú had said 24 hours after the incident, but that in fact the company had recovered nine barrels of “light waste” from land and sea.

Hipólito Paso, a fisherman from Talara forced to stop working due to the environmental emergency declaration, said that on the night of the spill he saw Petroperú workers attempting to contain the spill near its epicenter. “We were returning from fishing, and they were throwing the liquid [dispersant],” he told Mongabay. “The oil was no longer on top, but was being sent to sink, and that affects the marine species.”

These chemical dispersants “are solvents, they are not remediators,” Héctor Aponte, a marine biologist at the Scientific University of the South and spokesperson for the country’s professional society for biologists, told Mongabay. “In this dissolution process, part of the hydrocarbon is emulsified and goes to the bottom,” he said. “It mixes and forms flocs, but this is not remediation, it is dissolving.”

The tide after the spill

With the Dec. 25 emergency declaration, Petroperú began cleanup work on the affected beaches under OEFA’s supervision, with company employees and paid Lobitos residents as the workforce. That same day, in the middle of Christmas festivities, the Peruvian Navy warned about the arrival of an anomalous tide that would violently hit the country’s northern coast during the following days.

For the fishers it was the perfect storm that ruined their Christmas season. Added to the inconvenience of not being able to fish in Talara waters due to the spill was the oceanic phenomenon preventing them from leaving the contaminated area. Over the following days, strong waves destroyed dozens of boats, docks and coastal tourism establishments in ports such as Lobitos, El Ñuro and Máncora.

Fishers like Chapilliquen took the worst of it. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, he’d been refurbishing a boat for his business, Lobitos Ocean Adventure, which offers artisanal fishing trips to tourists. Last August, after four years and more than $13,000 invested, Chapilliquen inaugurated the boat — only to have it obliterated by the waves four months later.

This new catastrophe helped erase the crude oil from the beaches and from the news headlines. When this happens, “the hydrocarbons emulsify, that is, they mix with water, and when they mix, the black is no longer visible but other substances that are still toxic are decomposed,” Aponte said. “Even though we don’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s gone.”

OEFA’s latest report on the actions carried out under the declaration of emergency confirmed Aponte’s point. At the end of January, it stated, inspectors had confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons at Malacas and Peñitas beaches, right next to the spill area. In early February, OEFA included in its executive report 34 documented cases of people exposed to hydrocarbons having symptoms such as headache, nausea and vomiting.

The affected fishers

But what happens to the people affected by an oil spill? In January, the Lima-based NGO CooperAcción published a report on the supervision of the remediation work after the January 2022 oil spill from the Repsol refinery in the region of Callao near Lima, the worst in Peruvian history. When it came to compensation for the affected population, “there were no aid or job retraining programs from the company or the state,” only “small financial support” and “the solidarity of the rest of the population,” the report states.

The situation in Talara was no different. Although the Talara spill was smaller than the Repsol spill, it also left hundreds of victims who received what they consider an inadequate response from the state and its oil company and had to appeal to neighborhood solidarity. In the days after the spill, the Talara Fishermen’s Guild organized free communal meals for the more than 4,000 families who were left without a livelihood for weeks during the Christmas summer holidays.

“I have four children, where am I going to get money to give my children an education with a situation like this?” said César Iván Álvarez, a diving fisher from Talara. In late March he told Mongabay he continues to witness pollution and waste from the oil industry every day at work. Álvarez was one of dozens of fishers who went to the Talara Fishing Terminal in early January to register for access to the scant rations of community meals and the possibility of compensation from Petroperú.

José Sixto Panta, president of the Talara Fishermen’s Guild, announced in early January that the group’s demands of the company included the recognition of damages, “the payment of 100 soles [$27] a day for the 90 days of the emergency and compensation for all fishermen and all those affected.” On Jan. 7, a delegation from the union went to Petroperú’s offices at the Talara refinery to negotiate with company representatives.

The state’s asymmetric response

While the fishers’ demands amounted to 9,000 soles ($2,470) for each of the more than 4,000 fishers in Talara for profits lost during the emergency, Petroperú only committed to provide each fisher with a purchase card of 200 soles ($55), as well as compensation to individuals for damage to their fishing gear. It also donated provisions to their community meals. To each of the 1,000-plus fishers in Lobitos district, where the coast was hit harder by the oil, Petroperú provided five purchase cards of 300 soles ($409 total). The Talara fishers considered the amounts to be insufficient and the discrepancy an insult.

On a Talara refinery web page dedicated to the spill, Petroperú says it has “granted compensation to fishermen whose boats, gear and work clothes were affected by the event,” and states that “regarding compensation for non-pecuniary damages, Petroperú reiterates that such claims must be managed through the corresponding legal channels.” It also states that it has “honored all the commitments set forth in the minutes signed on January 7, 2025, with the representatives of the union.”

Such is the current situation for the fishers. Álvarez told Mongabay in late March that guild members each contributed 20 soles ($5.50) toward filing a legal claim against the public oil company for additional compensation, but they “don’t see a solution.”

In contrast, a 2023 renovation of the Talara refinery where the December spill originated left a $6.5 billion hole in Petroperú’s accounts, forcing the government to inject more than $5 billion into the company to ensure its continuity due to the imminent risk of bankruptcy.

By February, the fishers had returned to work, ever vigilant for new spills. On Feb. 10, oil was detected again on the surface of the Talara Sea, provoking protests by fishers and their families in front of the refinery. The police fired tear gas on the crowd, including children. On Feb. 27, fishers again reported oil on the water surface by the refinery. Both episodes drew OEFA investigators to collect samples, but the agency hasn’t released results indicating their origin.

Three weeks after the December spill, OEFA fined Petroperú $50,000 for failing to correctly identify its origin. In total, the company has accumulated fines amounting to almost $100 million for environmental damage caused throughout the country.

Despite everything, on large billboards mounted on the façade of the New Talara Refinery, Petroperú claims to offer “fair and clean energy for all Peruvians.”

See Mongabay’s short video on the Dec. 22 oil spill here.

Banner image: The families of fishers gather on Jan. 3 for a communal meal provided by the Talara Fishermen’s Guild. Image by Miguel Ángel Valero and Sandra Incio for Mongabay.

Petroperú’s financial troubles could mean no oil spill remediation, communities fear

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