AFTER A SPECTACULAR failing of the natural gas supply on the upscale West Coast at the height of the Christmas period, supplier the National Petroleum Company (NPC) is working day and night, trying to find the source of the problem.
Yesterday, testing teams moved from east to west in an effort to track the source of the outage which affected some restaurants preparing for the crush of Christmas customers last week.
The team, which included experts out of Trinidad, visited Woodbourne in St Philip, Newton in Christ Church, The Belle and Gill Road in St Michael, and parts of St James.
How long the tests would go on was unclear, but a source said they would continue “for a while” as the problem had to be identified to head off any further disruption.
Hotels and restaurants along the strip from Holetown, St James to Mullins Bay, St Peter, which were caught in the gas outage, are threatening to file claims against the NPC and the Barbados National Oil Company for losses.
Some of the businesses had full bookings, but were left scrambling to feed customers and in the end some resorted to cold menus.
In a Press release, NPC acting general manager Birchmore Scantlebury said that while there was pressure in the pipeline, the delivery of the actual gas was compromised by air inside the line. (AC)
