Oil firms will be facing legal action by Chinese fishermen who say that that a spill from a ConocoPhillips platform caused the scallop population in Bohai Bay to be devastated.
The fishermen, who come from the province's city of Tangshan said they believe that the scallops they were raising along the shores were poisoned by contamination from oil spills in the Penglai 19-3 oilfield located in the Bohai Bay, reported the Xinhua news agency. It isn’t the first time the fishermen have seen this kind of thing: they suffered similar losses after a leak from an undersea oil pipeline in 2006, which prevented local aquaculture from resuming normal production for over two years.
The oilfield is jointly operated by a Chinese subsidiary of US-based oil company ConocoPhillips and its partner, the China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC). The economic losses of the fishermen are no small fry, and are believed to be between YN150m and YN170m (US$23.5m to US$26.6m), as more than half of the scallops the fishermen raised have died, according to Yang Jizhen, President of the Laoting County Fishery Association.
Local authorities have not offered an explanation for the loss of the scallops, leading the fisherman to hire lawyers to sue ConocoPhillips, Mr Yang said. Legal fees will be covered by a fund of YN3m (roughly US$469,300) which has been raised by the 153 families of fishermen for that purpose.
The Chinese State Oceanic Administration's (SOA) monitoring centre reported that water quality at four monitoring stations located near the scallop breeding areas was acceptable. However, the fishermen say that they can still see black oil washing up on the beach. "Two strong tides, heavy rains and sunlight reduced some of the pollution. We just think the monitoring centre did not test the water at the right time or the right place," local fisherman Zhang Yutian said.
