Oil spill fallout

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

State-owned oil com­pa­ny Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um says there is cur­rent­ly no ev­i­dence to sup­port the pres­ence of large amounts of hy­dro­car­bons in the sea, fol­low­ing an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an al­leged oil spill flagged by Venezuela.

The com­pa­ny said it launched a mul­ti-agency re­sponse af­ter re­ceiv­ing a re­port yes­ter­day of a po­ten­tial hy­dro­car­bon sight­ing orig­i­nat­ing with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s wa­ters.

In a me­dia re­lease, Her­itage stat­ed: “Cur­rent­ly, there is no ev­i­dence to sup­port the pres­ence of large amounts of hy­dro­car­bons in the sea.”

De­spite a diplo­mat­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal alert from neigh­bour­ing Venezuela, com­pre­hen­sive sweeps by lo­cal au­thor­i­ties have yield­ed no signs of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, Her­itage said.
It added that a tech­ni­cal re­view of its SCA­DA on­line mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem con­firmed all pipeline and op­er­a­tional pa­ra­me­ters were nor­mal. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, emer­gency ves­sel sur­veil­lance dis­patched across all com­pa­ny as­sets re­port­ed no ab­nor­mal­i­ties.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion ex­tend­ed across the en­er­gy sec­tor and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as­sets were de­ployed in the track­ing op­er­a­tion.
Her­itage con­firmed it li­aised di­rect­ly with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard, which de­ployed ded­i­cat­ed mar­itime sur­veil­lance to sur­vey the Gulf of Paria and sur­round­ing ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters.

“Sur­veys con­duct­ed by the Coast Guard have so far cor­rob­o­rat­ed Her­itage’s find­ings, re­port­ing no vis­i­ble slicks or ma­rine ab­nor­mal­i­ties. While pre­lim­i­nary sweeps in­di­cate no im­me­di­ate en­vi­ron­men­tal cri­sis lo­cal­ly, re­sponse units re­main on high alert,” the re­lease said.

Her­itage not­ed that a mul­ti-tiered track­ing strat­e­gy, in­volv­ing con­tin­u­ous ves­sel sur­veil­lance and aer­i­al fly­overs, will re­main in place as the com­pa­ny awaits de­fin­i­tive field da­ta.

The mo­bil­i­sa­tion fol­lowed an of­fi­cial com­mu­niqué is­sued yes­ter­day by the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment, ac­com­pa­nied by mul­ti-tem­po­ral satel­lite analy­sis that it claims shows a ma­jor hy­dro­car­bon slick orig­i­nat­ing near Trinidad and mov­ing north­west in­to the Gulf.

Ac­cord­ing to im­agery re­leased by Venezuela’s oil sec­tor analy­sis arm, PDVSA IN­TEVEP, and de­rived from Sen­tinel-1 radar da­ta op­er­at­ed by the Eu­ro­pean Space Agency, the af­fect­ed ma­rine ar­eas ap­peared as dark anom­alies con­sis­tent with po­ten­tial oil pres­ence.

Cara­cas warned that the con­t­a­m­i­nants are mov­ing north­west to­ward both Venezue­lan and T&To­ba­go wa­ters, rais­ing con­cerns about pos­si­ble im­pacts on ma­rine ecosys­tems, coastal com­mu­ni­ties, and com­mer­cial fish­ing zones across the Gulf of Paria.

The Venezue­lan For­eign Min­istry de­scribed the de­vel­op­ment as a re­newed en­vi­ron­men­tal threat and ref­er­enced what it claims is a sig­nif­i­cant cross-bor­der pol­lu­tion event af­fect­ing sen­si­tive coastal and wet­land sys­tems.

This de­vel­op­ment fol­lows an ear­li­er dis­pute on May 19, when Venezuela’s For­eign Min­is­ter Yván Gil ac­cused T&T of a “lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion” af­ter a leak at Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um’s Ris­er Plat­form No. 2 in the Main Sol­da­do Field.

At the time, Cara­cas cit­ed satel­lite-de­rived es­ti­mates sug­gest­ing wide­spread en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact, while Port-of-Spain main­tained the leak was con­tained at about ten bar­rels and treat­ed with dis­per­sants.

De­spite high-lev­el bi­lat­er­al talks on May 22 in­volv­ing En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Venezuela’s Min­is­ter of Ecoso­cial­ism Fred­dy Ñáñez to strength­en joint spill re­sponse co­or­di­na­tion, re­la­tions now ap­pear strained again amid con­flict­ing tech­ni­cal as­sess­ments.

Re­spond­ing to the al­le­ga­tions, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said yes­ter­day that gov­ern­ment agen­cies were mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion and had ac­ti­vat­ed es­tab­lished re­sponse pro­to­cols.
He said Gov­ern­ment re­mains in con­tin­u­ous con­tact with Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers, who has en­gaged the Venezue­lan Mis­sion in Port-of-Spain as diplo­mat­ic chan­nels re­main open.

Mooni­lal added that T&T has for­mal­ly re­quest­ed pre­cise co­or­di­nates from Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to as­sist ver­i­fi­ca­tion ef­forts and sup­port an in­de­pen­dent as­sess­ment of the re­port­ed spill.
He al­so con­firmed meet­ing re­cent­ly with Sobers and the Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador, de­scrib­ing the en­gage­ment as fo­cused on in­for­ma­tion-shar­ing as both sides seek clar­i­ty on the evolv­ing sit­u­a­tion.

Mean­while, Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Gary Aboud yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­cern over the lat­est re­ports.

He added that the sit­u­a­tion mir­rors the May in­ci­dent, ar­gu­ing that trans­paren­cy should not de­pend on in­ter­na­tion­al pres­sure.
FFOS al­so warned that re­peat­ed re­ports of oil spills are erod­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in ma­rine re­sources, with fish­er­men fac­ing wors­en­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, de­clin­ing catch­es, and grow­ing un­cer­tain­ty over seafood safe­ty and mar­ket sta­bil­i­ty.

FFOS is call­ing for the im­me­di­ate re­lease of all satel­lite da­ta, tra­jec­to­ry mod­el­ling, wa­ter qual­i­ty as­sess­ments, and re­sponse mea­sures. It al­so wants a full pub­lic in­quiry in­to both the May and June in­ci­dents, as well as the es­tab­lish­ment of a com­pen­sa­tion mech­a­nism for af­fect­ed fish­ing com­mu­ni­ties.