Peru’s consumer protection agency is suing Spanish oil firm Repsol over a huge oil spill which blackened beaches off the coast of Lima in January. The spill, which Peru called the worst ecological disaster around Lima in recent memory, leaked more than 10,000 barrels into the Pacific Ocean. The civil lawsuit seeks $3bn (£2.54bn) for environmental damage and $1.5bn (£1.27bn) for damages to locals. Repsol has denied responsibility. The company initially said the spill was caused by “sudden and extraordinary anomalous waves produced by the volcanic eruption in Tonga”. However, it later blamed the oil tanker. On Tuesday, a Peruvian judge admitted the $4.5bn lawsuit by Indecopi against Repsol, meaning the case will go to court. An underwater oil pipeline owned by the company caused a spill on 15 January. It happened when an Italian-flagged tanker, Mare Doricum, was unloading at Repsol’s La Pampilla refinery. Repsol has denied responsibility for the spill and said that it sees the claim as “baseless, inadmissible, and inconsistent”. “We have not yet been notified of the court’s acceptance of the complaint, and we do not know the details of the acceptance,” a spokesperson for the firm told the BBC.(BBC)…[+]