A 500-cubic-metre oil spill is still tainting lives in this Hungarian town

In the outskirts of Gárdony, a town in central Hungary, small houses are occupied by agricultural workers and commuters. Robert Dudás, 28, and his partner, who both work in the nearby city of Székesfehérvár, moved here last February.

They were drawn to the clean, calm environment - a nice change after living in a Soviet-style apartment. But just a few months later, an oil spill changed their neighborhood.

Last September, MOL, Hungary’s leading gas and oil company, detected a drop in the pressure of one of their pipes. A weeks-long investigation eventually revealed a leak near Dudás’s house.

The cleanup could cost billions of forints (millions of euros) according to local media. The local population, including Dudás, claims there has been a lack of transparency, and is campaigning for compensation and answers.

The oil spill in Hungary

According to a report it released in late February, MOL - in which the Hungarian government has shares through foundations - detected a drop in pressure in its 190km long pipeline in September.

After locating the leak to a stretch two metres below ground near Gárdony in October, MOL dug up the pipe to reveal a 10cm long break.

It then halted the flow of oil for a few weeks before replacing the part, covering the pipe with fresh soil, and resuming operations. The monitoring and cleaning continues, through blue pipes that mark newly dug-up monitoring wells, of which around a dozen are visible in the streets near where the leak happened. 

But residents were left with questions, including about the quantity of the oil that escaped.

MOL initially acknowledged a spill of 10 cubic metres. But after an investigation by independent investigative watchdog Átlátszó, and pressure from the locals, the company admitted that almost 487 cubic metres of oil had escaped. 

That’s around one fifth of the volume of an Olympic swimming pool, or 6,500 times as much oil as a car gas tank could hold.

The locals in an ‘alternative’ living situation looking for answers

“There is one family which is directly affected,” Árpád Pál Eötvös, Gárdony’s mayor, told Euronews. They lived on the property next to where the spill happened. According to Eötvös, this family received compensation from MOL, which offered to buy their property.

Eötvös highlighted that his office is in weekly communication with MOL, which tested a dozen wells. On top of this, the municipal government tested over 50, none of which showed signs of contamination from oil, but found sodium, nitrite or e-coli bacteria, all of them harmful. 

According to Eötvös, this is due to the fact that this area, close to agriculture and without running water or paved roads, isn’t fit for full-time residents, but acknowledges that the high cost of renting drives people to live here. 

“This area is an alternative for the cost-of-living crisis,” agrees Róbert Dudás, a local resident. His property is around 200 metres from the leak. He learned about the incident on Facebook. 

Like many, Dudás relies on the well in his garden. He did a test privately in January 2025, and found no contamination. Nevertheless, he received a letter from the municipal government, advising residents to abstain from drinking well water due to possible contamination unrelated to the spill. 

He thinks that the municipal government should advocate for those living here, not only the one family which received compensation. “There are 164 residents here. The local government has let all of them down,” he says.

According to Tibor Horányi, an environmental engineer and member of the NGO Alba Natura Foundation, and a member of the municipal assembly, there are more victims from the oil spill than MOL and the local government have acknowledged.

"This person doesn’t want to use well water because he can smell oil. This one can’t keep animals, this [person] stopped growing vegetables,” Horányi points in different directions, standing on soil MOL used to fill holes after the leak. According to the Gárdony-based environmental engineer, the locals could take MOL to court for compensation.

“But not everyone is in a financial position to pay for a lawyer,” he says.

A slow cleanup in Gárdony

In its February report, MOL announced it is building an L-shaped solid wall underground, to halt the potential spread of the contamination while extraction is ongoing through monitoring wells.

Experts, including Horányi and the local branch of Greenpeace, fear the contamination could reach Lake Velence, Hungary’s third largest lake which lies just a few kilometres away and is home to multiple endangered species.

“In a standard damage clearance, one doesn’t use isolation walls because they are expensive,” says Gergely Simon, a chemical expert from Greenpeace Hungary. “We suspect that the contamination is larger than they thought.”

Gárdony’s mayor says that the contamination has not spread beyond the initial scope, but believes the plan for building the underground wall is “reassuring.” 

Aging pipes could be a source of future accidents

Greenpeace notes that MOL’s pipe system is vulnerable due to its age, as many of the pipes were laid 50 years ago.

The incident in Gárdony wasn’t an isolated case. Moreover, the locals share a rumour about a leak here, ten years ago, although there is no evidence of this.  

A few weeks before MOL acknowledged the break in Gárdony, another pipeline in Kiskunmajsa, a town in southern Hungary, burst and leaked crude oil.

MOL also has a controlling stake in INA, the Croatian oil-gas company, which lost one of its gas platforms in the Adriatic Sea in 2020. It hasn’t been recovered since, posing a threat to marine life.

Greenpeace is demanding compensation, transparency, and cleanup at these sites, as well as stronger efforts to prevent similar incidents, and a transition away from fossil-fuel infrastructure.

MOL says they look after their network of over 1,200 kilometres of pipeage in Hungary using “the most modern equipment.”

“It seems like the maintenance and care of these pipes is not sufficient,” Gergely Simon, from Greenpeace, says. "Because if it were, these events wouldn’t have happened."

MOL didn’t respond to questions from Euronews.