Close call

RAD­HI­CA DE.SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

There are re­newed calls for stronger off­shore safe­ty mea­sures af­ter a work­er sur­vived a crane-re­lat­ed in­ci­dent at Peren­co’s Samaan Al­pha drilling plat­form off Trinidad’s south-east coast on Wednes­day.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4 pm on Wednes­day dur­ing rou­tine lift­ing op­er­a­tions be­ing con­duct­ed by Ja­son Au­gus­tine at the Samaan Al­pha plat­form.

Ac­cord­ing to Peren­co, the plat­form’s crane be­came de­tached from its pedestal and col­lapsed on the ves­sel’s deck, trig­ger­ing the im­me­di­ate ac­ti­va­tion of the com­pa­ny’s emer­gency re­sponse pro­ce­dures. Per­son­nel aboard the plat­form and near­by sup­port ves­sels were mo­bilised.

Au­gus­tine, who was con­scious af­ter he was eject­ed in­to the wa­ter, was as­sist­ed aboard the sup­port ves­sel, Mr Row, by crew mem­bers. First aid was ad­min­is­tered be­fore the Samaan Field medic board­ed the ves­sel to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al treat­ment.

The work­er was lat­er trans­port­ed ashore and tak­en by am­bu­lance to the South­ern Med­ical Cen­tre in San Fer­nan­do.

In an up­date is­sued yes­ter­day, Peren­co said Au­gus­tine suf­fered an abra­sion to the fore­head and a lac­er­a­tion to the left fore­arm. He com­plet­ed med­ical eval­u­a­tions and was dis­charged from hos­pi­tal at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6.45 am.

The com­pa­ny said all oth­er per­son­nel aboard both the sup­port ves­sel and the Samaan Al­pha plat­form were ac­count­ed for and un­harmed.

Peren­co al­so re­port­ed that the Mr Row had been repo­si­tioned away from pipelines and oth­er sub­sea in­fra­struc­ture, with the de­tached crane se­cured on its deck. The com­pa­ny said there was no ev­i­dence of any es­ca­la­tion or dam­age to near­by in­fra­struc­ture.

The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty were no­ti­fied and kept in­formed through­out the in­ci­dent.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the min­istry said it re­mained in close con­tact with Peren­co and would con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion to en­sure all nec­es­sary fol­low-up ac­tions were tak­en in ac­cor­dance with reg­u­la­to­ry and safe­ty re­quire­ments.

The min­istry added that Peren­co was mak­ing arrange­ments to safe­ly se­cure and re­cov­er the af­fect­ed crane equip­ment.

Peren­co con­firmed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent has be­gun, with a team sched­uled to trav­el off­shore to the Samaan Al­pha plat­form.

The com­pa­ny re­it­er­at­ed that the safe­ty and well-be­ing of its per­son­nel re­main its high­est pri­or­i­ty.

The lat­est in­ci­dent has again reignit­ed con­cerns about safe­ty stan­dards in en­er­gy sec­tor

Among those rais­ing con­cerns is Can­da­cy Phillip, whose hus­band, Pe­te Phillip, dis­ap­peared fol­low­ing the par­tial col­lapse of Well Ser­vices’ Rig 110 in the East Sol­da­do Field in De­cem­ber 2024.

Yes­ter­day, she said “There is clear­ly some­thing wrong.” Call­ing for greater scruti­ny of safe­ty pro­to­cols across off­shore in­stal­la­tions, she added, “They’re say­ing the rigs have safe­ty mea­sures in place, but when things like this keep hap­pen­ing, it’s not right. They need to check on those sys­tems,” she said.

Phillip be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment should close­ly ex­am­ine the is­sue, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of pre­vi­ous off­shore in­ci­dents.

“Since what hap­pened with the four divers, then my hus­band, and now this in­ci­dent, it’s some­thing they need to look in­to,” she said.

She ad­mit­ted that news of off­shore ac­ci­dents con­tin­ues to re­open emo­tion­al wounds.

“When I’m on­line read­ing these sto­ries, and every time you check the com­ments, you see Pe­te’s name come up, it brings every­thing back. It re­minds me of Pe­te and his best friend. Every­thing comes back in a flash,” Phillip said.

Re­call­ing see­ing her hus­band’s name men­tioned on so­cial me­dia fol­low­ing the Peren­co in­ci­dent, Phillip said the mem­o­ries were over­whelm­ing.

“It brings back every­thing that took place, all the sad­ness,” she said.

De­spite her grief, Phillip ex­pressed grat­i­tude that the in­jured work­er sur­vived.

“You have to thank God for life. They have to be grate­ful that he’s still alive and here,” she said.

She al­so urged off­shore op­er­a­tors to take every pre­cau­tion nec­es­sary to pro­tect work­ers.

The En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so re­spond­ed to the in­ci­dent. Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr Priya Mara­jh said the or­gan­i­sa­tion was close­ly mon­i­tor­ing de­vel­op­ments and wished the in­jured op­er­a­tor a full re­cov­ery.

Mara­jh not­ed that the en­er­gy in­dus­try in­volves in­her­ent­ly high-risk op­er­a­tions and said the in­ci­dent un­der­scored the im­por­tance of ef­fec­tive emer­gency re­sponse sys­tems.

She said thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the shar­ing of lessons learned were crit­i­cal to pre­vent­ing sim­i­lar oc­cur­rences, re­duc­ing fu­ture risks and main­tain­ing the high­est safe­ty stan­dards across the sec­tor.