The All-China Environment Federation (ACEF) brought a claim against the State Oceanic Administration (SOA), Chinese newspaper Global Times says. The nationwide non-profitable civil society organization demands the cancellation of the American ConocoPhillips license for resuming works in Bohai Bay. Previously, the permission was denied due to the oil spills.
The ACEF lawyer Xu Hongliang told that the SOA had granted the license to the ConocoPhillips without public discussing and corresponding examinations that contravenes the law. The environmentalists want the government to disclose the mechanism of license issuing. The ACEF notes that the report on environment impact was prepared by the organization that is close to the ConocoPhillips. Furthermore, the SOA had been studying the document for just a month.
Another two companies, which are involved in aquatic organisms breeding, also filed lawsuits against the SOA. The companies from Dongying of Shandong province demand the court to bring to account the administrative agency, which, in their opinion, did not effectively use the money allocated to deal with the oil spills aftermath.
According to Xu Hongliang, the SOA received 1 billion yuan ($116 million) for these purposes, and 1 billion was credited by the ConocoPhillips to the Ministry of Agriculture of China. It is worthy of note that the ConocoPhillips company was forced to suspend works in Bohai Bay in September 2011 after the oil spilled in the Penglai field, which also belongs to the state company China National Offshore Oil Corporation. About 3,000 barrels of crude oil and liquid used for greasing the drill were discharged to the bay. As Chinese mass media report, the contamination was spread over the area of 4,200 square kilometers (compare: Singapore’s territory is 715 km²).
