Counselor Josu Jon Imaz noted that the incident originally responded to "a movement of the ship transporting the oil", but the company "did not limit itself" to saying that it was the responsibility of the shipping company. This Friday, the Spanish oil firm approved a series of resolutions at its annual shareholders meeting.
Repsol CEO, Josu Jon Imaz, has claimed that the company "was not responsible for the original cause" of the oil spill accident in Peru in 2022, although he has assured that it acted from "the first moment."
When asked by shareholders at the group's general meeting, Imaz noted that the incident was originally due to "a movement of the ship transporting the oil", but the company "did not limit itself" to saying that it was the responsibility of the shipping company.
He underlined that Repsol "evidently does not assume this responsibility in legal terms" since it was not at the origin of the case, although it did act from the first moment."
"And beyond the legal responsibility that may correspond to others, at the first moment of the spill in Peru in January 2022, we undertook all the necessary actions. We have allocated more than US$ 300 million to cleanup, remediation, compensation in the affected areas," he assured, adding that more than ten thousand people have also been helped with compensation.
OBSESSION TO ELECTRIFY
In the conference that followed the shareholders meeting, Repsol did not hesitate to criticize environmental measures that it considers extreme.
"The European Union needs to offer more incentives if it wants the bloc's industry to navigate the transition to green energy and at the same time be competitive with its global rivals (...) We need an efficient energy transition that does not harm the European Union industry," company president Antonio Brufau told shareholders at the company's annual meeting.
The oil company's president said Europe needed "more carrots, fewer sticks," pointing to the policies introduced in the United States under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a positive example.
Brufau also criticized the "obsession with electrification" in Europe and called for the willingness to adopt all technologies capable of reducing emissions, such as renewable gases.
The United States is a key market for Repsol, so the firm is targeting for more contracts in that country.
During the meeting, it was also agreed to reduce Repsol's share capital by an amount of 40,000,000 euros, through the amortization of 40,000,000 treasury shares of one euro nominal value each.
All shares that are or have been acquired through the share repurchase program aimed at all shareholders will be redeemed during the capital reduction process. This will be done to 35,000,000 treasury shares, which the Board of Directors agreed to implement on February 21 of 2024.
