A massive oil spill has been spreading off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast since mid-August, covering at least 225 square kilometers (nearly 90 square miles). The spill has received scant media coverage as the country continues to be embroiled in an election crisis.
First reported by Reuters on August 17, the spill appeared to originate from El Palito refinery, the smallest oil refining complex in Puerto Cabello on the coast of Carabobo, a central state.
On August 14, satellite images posted on X by marine biologist Eduardo Klein showed the spill covered around 225 kilometers, or around 37,000 soccer fields.
Klein warned that this spill “was bigger than previous ones.”
The new spill is of fuel oil, a hydrocarbon with higher viscosity than petroleum. It could be one of the largest in Venezuela’s history.
The spill first spread over to the coasts of Boca de Aroa, a small fishing town in the Falcon state. Fishing and all tourist activity in the area were suspended until further notice.
Images and videos of the contamination were posted on social media as the spill spread to the beaches in Tucacas, a popular tourist destination known for its palm trees and mangroves.
By August 20, the leak had yet to be contained, according to Klein. Due to winds and currents, the spill’s path could not be predicted.
On August 30, satellite images showed that the hydrocarbon stain from the El Palito spill spread east to the coasts of Miranda state, over 150 km away from its origin point. The stain was about 50 km long.
Over two weeks since the first reports of the spill, there has yet to be any reaction from any state authorities. Environmental NGO Clima 21 expressed “alarm” at the “absolute silence from authorities.”
“The political crisis cannot be the excuse to hide situations that threaten the health of the environment and its citizens,” the NGO’s statement expressed.
Venezuela has been in the midst of a political crisis since highly contested elections on July 28. The government claims Nicolás Maduro won re-election and has since enforced a crackdown against dissent. The opposition claims that their candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won by a wide margin.
In the first semester of the year, environmental human rights NGO Clima 21 reported at least 18 oil spills. According to the NGO’s coordinator, Alejandro Alvarez Iragorry, “it is likely that the actual number is far bigger” due to the fact that state-owned oil company PDVSA has not released information about spills since 2016.
Clima 21 concluded that the oil industry in Venezuela produced an average of 6 oil spills a month in 2023.
On September 1, Klein reported another leak via X, this time in PDVSA’s underwater oil pipeline.
