A GALICIA court says Spain could be eligible for over €1.57 billion in compensation for the Prestige disaster in 2002, when the ship of the same name sank in the Bay of Biscay and its 77,000-tonne cargo of fuel caused an oil slick large enough to reach from Barcelona nearly to the Scottish border.
Of this, more than 10%, or €1.8 million, would be destined for the regional government of Galicia for its costs in clearing and recycling the spilt fuel, says the court in A Coruña which handled the Prestige case in 2013.
A further €61m would be payable to the State of France.
Jointly and severally liable are the ship's captain, Apostolos Ioannis Mangouras, The London Steamship Owners' Mutual Insurance Association, and the ship's owner, Mare Shipping Inc.
Mangouras and the insurance company have to pay up to at least US$1bn (€850m).
The captain would have been insured for public liability as part of his profession, as would Mare Shipping.
Insurance companies involved would be able to reclaim some or all of the money from the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds (IOPC Funds), up to the limits the organisation imposes.
Third-most costly environmental disaster after Columbia and Chernobyl
The oil tanker capsized 15 years ago on November 13 during a storm about 250 kilometres off the stretch of shoreline known as the Costa de la Muerte – eerily, 'Death Coast' – in the north-western region of Galicia.
It sank completely several days later despite major efforts on the part of the regional government to refloat it or, at least, to manoeuvre it as far away from the coast as possible.
One of the worst environmental disasters in navigation history, the Prestige's sinking caused an oil slick affecting three countries – Spain, Portugal and France – and 2,000 kilometres of coast.
The huge fuel stain spread from Portugal's north to the Département of Landes in what is now the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
Cordoning off and removing the wreckage of the tanker, and the clean-up operation – which took until well into 2003 – cost over US$12bn (€10.2bn at today's exchange rate), more than the Challenger explosion and only beaten by the disintegration of the Columbia and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
