PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – The Oilfield Workers Union (OWTU) is accusing the state-owned oil company, PETROTRIN, of being aware of the source of the oil spill as the cleanup operations continue unabated in the south of the island.
“All the clean-up operations would make no sense if the oil well is not killed,” OWTU president Ancel Roget told a news conference.
He said PETROTRIN was well aware of where the leak was occurring, contrary to what was being reported to the media.
“For those of us who know the offshore drilling operation would know that once a leak is observed from casing conductor pipe that is as serious as can be because that is sub-sea. Therefore the remedy for that is to kill the well. All of this was reported to PETROTRIN…No information subsequent to this was made available to the public or to the media.”
Roget said that there was no oil spill containment infrastructure available at the platforms, which was in direct breach of health and safety codes, insisting that senior officials at PETROTRIN and the Ministry of Energy should have been aware of that information and all efforts should be made to contain the leak.
PETROTRIN has said it is unable to determine the source of the leak, which has spilled oil into the waters in the Gulf of Paria over the past seven days.
The spills have affected residents in La Brea, south of here, and Roget described the situation there as a tragedy.
He said the oil spill at another facility was nothing more than a “cover up” and that PETROTRIN was shielding its leased companies. He said all lease agreements should be made public regarding companies contracted to conduct operations on PETROTRIN lands.
Meanwhile, PETROTRIN in its latest statement, said the clean-up operations were continuing and that “significant progress has been achieved”.
It said the “affected coastline is beginning to look the way it did before the incident. Encouragingly, no new volumes of oil are washing ashore in the affected areas in La Brea.”
