Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has ordered the owners and operators of the container ship  X-Press Pearl to pay $1bn USD in compensation for the devastating environmental and economic damage caused when the ship caught fire and sank off Colombo in 2021.

The sinking has been described as the worst marine ecological disaster in Sri Lankan history. X-Press Pearl was loaded with 1,486 containers, containing a range of chemicals, including 25 tons of nitric acid, as well as 1,600 tonnes of low-density polyethylene pellets, commonly referred to as nurdles. 

Nurdles are the raw materials that are melted to make plastic products. An estimated 70 to 75 billion plastic nurdles spilled along Sri Lanka’s western coastline in the sinking, covering the shoreline in a toxic blizzard of white plastic pellets, creating the largest plastic spill ever recorded. 

Now, four years after the sinking, a deadly mix of tonnes of engine fuel, acid, caustic soda, lead, copper slag, lithium batteries, epoxy resin, and billions of nurdles continues to kill sealife and to foul the beaches. 

The Disaster Begins

The disaster unfolded shortly after the X-Press Pearl sailed from Dubai Port bound for Port Klang in Malaysia, when the crew noticed that a container carrying nitric acid was leaking. The ship requested permission to unload the leaking container at ports in Qatar and India, but was denied.

The container had been leaking for at least eight days when the ship sought emergency berthing in Sri Lankan waters late at night on May 19, 2021. By morning, however, the acid leak ignited a fire on the ship.  Despite firefighting efforts from the crew, the Sri Lankan authorities, and salvors, the fire spread throughout the ship.

The fire burned for almost two weeks before the ship finally sank, spilling its cargo and fuel into the sea around nine nautical miles off the country’s south-west coast, between the capital Colombo and Negombo to the north.

The BBC reports that while hundreds of millions of nurdles may have been cleared away in the clean-up so far, the remaining, lentil-sized microplastic granules have become increasingly difficult to find as they disappear deeper into the sand. Worse, those pieces of plastic now appear to be becoming even more toxic, new research suggests.

“They seem to be accumulating pollution from the ocean,” said David Megson, of Manchester Metropolitan University. “Like a lovely big chemical sponge.”

The team also found the pellets “still going round appear to be sucking up more pollution from the environment” and were becoming “more toxic”, according to Mr Megson.

“They will be ingested [and] will pass pollution on to marine organisms,” he says.

The Supreme Court Ruling

The court, as reported, has identified the X-Press Pearl Group as the sole polluter and ordered them to pay $1 billion in damages. The payment is to be made in three instalments: $250 million by 23 September 2025, another $500 million within six months of the judgment, and the final $250 million within one year.

The court determined that the ship’s Master, Operator, and local Agent intentionally withheld critical information from the Colombo Harbour Master about the vessel’s hazardous condition in an attempt to gain entry into port.

Furthermore, it ruled that the vessel’s owner, charterers, and local agent Sea Consortium Lanka are all liable under the “polluter pays” principle. The parties admitted environmental damage but failed to provide credible counterclaims to the losses.

In addition, the court also found the state, including the former environment minister Nalaka Godahewa and MEPA, violated citizens’ rights by not acting promptly.

In addition to the $1bn USD compensation, the court announced the formation of the “MV X-Press Pearl Compensation Commission”, which will need to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the environmental and economic damages. The $1bn USD fine is considered only an “interim payment” and may be revised upward based on the commission’s findings. 

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.