The Environment Agency has made Perenco UK Ltd pay out £6.1m to put right the damage done to the Dorset environment by a major oil spill.
The package includes £620,000 to impacted parties alongside £400,000 towards wildlife and access projects run by local bodies, News Cover reports, citing the UK government's official website.
In agreeing to the sanction, which is known as an enforcement undertaking and can be used as an alternative to a prosecution, Perenco has also put in place robust measures to ensure that a pollution incident does not happen again.
Perenco made the offer after an Environment Agency investigation into the incident. A revised offer made by Perenco was eventually accepted by the agency.
The pollution incident occurred in March 2023 when Perenco discovered oil leaking from a pipe carrying a mix of oil and water at Ower Bay in Poole Harbour.
A breach of the pipe was caused as part of the pipe corroded much faster than checks indicated or was expected.
A significant amount of oil leaked into the Poole harbour area, which includes sensitive habitats and species such as seagrass and saltmarsh.
The £6.1m includes £2.6m on the initial incident response, £2.4m for clean-up and £115k for ecological surveys.
The company paid £620k direct to impacted parties, including commercial seafood beds who were forced to close during the initial pollution assessment.
The Environment Agency accepted Perenco’s offer due to the significant costs the company had already spent making right the environmental damage caused, and the measures taken to prevent a reoccurrence of the incident
