Moonilal defends delay in oil spill disclosure

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal says there is no pol­i­cy re­quir­ing the Min­istry of En­er­gy to is­sue pub­lic state­ments on small oil spills, as he de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of an off­shore spill dis­closed on­ly af­ter Venezuela is­sued a com­mu­niqué over the week­end.

Mooni­lal was re­spond­ing in Par­lia­ment to­day to an ur­gent ques­tion from for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young con­cern­ing the May 1 oil spill which the Gov­ern­ment pub­licly ac­knowl­edged on May 10.

Young asked whether Mooni­lal had con­tact­ed Venezuela’s En­er­gy Min­is­ter to pro­vide de­tails on the spill, which Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties claimed neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed parts of that coun­try’s coast­line.

“Would the min­is­ter in­form this House whether he has been in touch with the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela to pro­vide her with the de­tails and in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the said oil spill which has neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed Venezuela,” Young asked.

Re­spond­ing, Mooni­lal dis­missed the ques­tion as “ill ad­vised” and “ill con­ceived”, ar­gu­ing it was based on “sev­er­al fal­lac­i­es”.

He told Par­lia­ment the May 1 in­ci­dent was clas­si­fied as a “tier one” spill and con­sid­ered mi­nor.

“The oil spill in ques­tion of May 1 is deemed, and was deemed to be a small spill for tier one,” Mooni­lal said.

He added there was no es­tab­lished pol­i­cy or pro­to­col re­quir­ing the Min­istry to is­sue pub­lic ad­vi­sories or press re­leas­es in such cas­es.

“Mis­ter Speak­er, there is no pol­i­cy or pro­to­col for the Min­istry of En­er­gy to is­sue a pub­lic ad­vi­so­ry or a press re­lease in deal­ing with small spills,” Mooni­lal said.

The min­is­ter al­so ac­cused the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion of fail­ing to dis­close dozens of sim­i­lar in­ci­dents dur­ing its tenure.

“Be­tween the years 2019 to 2021, Mis­ter Speak­er, there were 76 small spills, of which the Min­istry of En­er­gy nev­er is­sued one press re­lease,” he said.

Mooni­lal said the min­istry on­ly is­sued a state­ment af­ter Venezuela cir­cu­lat­ed a com­mu­niqué through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels on May 9.

“Up­on re­ceipts, Sat­ur­day May 9, in the late evening of a com­mu­niqué al­leged­ly is­sued by the Re­pub­lic of Venezuela, with­in hours the Min­istry of En­er­gy is­sued a state­ment,” he said.

Young lat­er pressed Mooni­lal on whether he even knew the name of Venezuela’s En­er­gy Min­is­ter and whether any di­rect cor­re­spon­dence had been sent from min­is­ter to min­is­ter.

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh in­ter­vened dur­ing the ex­change be­fore al­low­ing Young to con­tin­ue with a sup­ple­men­tary ques­tion.

Mooni­lal replied the Venezue­lan com­mu­niqué had been trans­mit­ted through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels and not di­rect­ly to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s En­er­gy Min­istry.

“On the very night of May 9, our state­ment from the Min­istry of En­er­gy was sent to His Ex­cel­len­cy, Am­bas­sador of Venezuela in Port of Spain,” Mooni­lal said.

The is­sue sur­faced pub­licly af­ter Venezuela claimed the spill posed “se­vere risks” to ecosys­tems in the states of Su­cre and Delta Amacuro and in the Gulf of Paria.

In a state­ment is­sued on May 10, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­istry of En­er­gy said Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um de­tect­ed the spill on May 1 and im­me­di­ate­ly ac­ti­vat­ed con­tain­ment mea­sures. The min­istry said mod­el­ling ini­tial­ly sug­gest­ed hy­dro­car­bons could cross in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters if left un­treat­ed.