Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A tug boat tow­ing a barge from Pana­ma bound for Guyana was in­volved in the oil spill in­ci­dent off To­ba­go - and the wrecked barge, which is leak­ing the oil, is now sink­ing.

Gov­ern­ment has now called in top in­ter­na­tion­al mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty in­ves­ti­ga­tors I.R. Con­sil­i­um to sup­port lo­cal and re­gion­al eff­forts to iden­ti­fy the ves­sels and their own­ers.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds con­firmed this yes­ter­day in re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia queries on the is­sue.

Af­ter the oil-leak­ing ves­sel was de­tect­ed last Wednes­day lodged on a reef off To­ba­go’s coast, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last Sun­day said the ves­sel - un­known up to then - had ap­par­ent­ly drift­ed up­side down in­to To­ba­go’s lit­er­al zone and ap­peared to be bro­ken.

Oil from the 90-me­tre, large­ly sub­merged ves­sel be­fouled coast­lines from Scar­bor­ough to Low­lands. Con­tain­ment and clean-up was launched by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and gov­ern­ment agen­cies.

The UNC and NTA sub­se­quent­ly slammed Gov­ern­ment on the breach of se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems with the ves­sel’s en­try in­to T&T wa­ters. The IDA and UNC called for Gov­ern­ment to make the ves­sel’s own­ers pay for dam­age caused to T&T and NGO Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea ques­tioned its ori­gin, the cri­sis man­age­ment and oth­er is­sues.

Yes­ter­day, Hinds said in­ves­ti­ga­tions were still on­go­ing .

“But in terms of the ves­sel’s ori­gin, we’re in a far bet­ter po­si­tion now than last week. All re­sources avail­able to us lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly are be­ing used in this mat­ter,” he said.

Hinds said lo­cal­ly, the T&T Coast Guard (TTCG), Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion and Na­tion­al Coastal Sur­veil­lance Radar Cen­tre Radar are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter.

“Al­so, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, in par­tic­u­lar the TTCG, is col­lab­o­rat­ing with oth­er lo­cal and re­gion­al agen­cies, in­clud­ing Cari­com’s Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS), the Guyana Coast Guard (GCG), the Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, and I.R. Con­sil­i­um, through con­sul­tant Dr Ian Ral­by, to iden­ti­fy the ves­sels and their own­ers.”

A sub­se­quent min­istry re­lease stat­ed, “The TTCG has con­firmed that at least two ves­sels were in­volved in the oil spill in­ci­dent.”

Video footage and oth­er in­for­ma­tion ob­tained by TTCG con­firmed that the two ves­sels were the tug boat and the barge. The min­istry said the oil spill ap­peared to be em­a­nat­ing from the wrecked barge.

The TTCG con­firmed the barge was be­ing towed by the tug, the So­lo Creed, from Pana­ma. In­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that the ves­sels ap­pear to have been bound for Guyana. How­ev­er, the Guyanese au­thor­i­ties con­firmed that nei­ther the tug nor the barge ever en­tered Guyana wa­ters.

“At this stage, it is not known whether any lives have been lost in the in­ci­dent,” the min­istry added.

Radar Cen­tre lost con­tact with ves­sels

The min­istry said satel­lite im­agery had shown the So­lo Creed tug tow­ing an ob­ject on Feb­ru­ary 4, 2024.

“The Na­tion­al Coastal Sur­veil­lance Radar Cen­tre (NC­SRC) was able to use this in­for­ma­tion to track the tug in T&T wa­ters, tow­ing an ob­ject. The NC­SRC even­tu­al­ly lost radar con­tact with both ves­sels,” the min­istry added.

As part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Cari­com IM­PACS con­tact­ed the au­thor­i­ties in Pana­ma and Aru­ba for pho­tographs of the tug boat and the barge.

The Dutch au­thor­i­ties in Aru­ba pro­vid­ed im­ages of the tug tow­ing the barge, and these im­ages were used to con­firm the iden­ti­ty of both ves­sels.

The min­istry added that the TTCG is al­so ex­am­in­ing video footage sup­plied by the Guyana Coast Guard of the barge, “as it ap­peared to be sink­ing”.

The TTCG is now us­ing cer­tain dis­tinc­tive mark­ings of the barge to con­firm its iden­ti­ty.

Hinds said he ap­pre­ci­at­ed the sup­port be­ing pro­vid­ed by re­gion­al agen­cies.

“We’ve been work­ing very close­ly with the Guyana Coast Guard on this crit­i­cal mat­ter and we ap­pre­ci­ate their full-scale sup­port. Sim­i­lar­ly, I’m ap­pre­cia­tive of Cari­com IM­PACS and the work and sup­port of our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners in this mat­ter.

“I give the as­sur­ance that the TTCG will con­tin­ue to work with oth­er lo­cal and re­gion­al au­thor­i­ties in this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and we look for­ward to a swift and suc­cess­ful res­o­lu­tion to all our ben­e­fit,” Hinds added.

I.R. Con­sil­i­um - mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts

Ac­cord­ing to the US Naval In­sti­tute and Glob­al Ini­tia­tive Against Transna­tion­al Crime web­sites, IRC CEO Dr Ral­by is a lead­ing ex­pert on mar­itime law and se­cu­ri­ty, pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty over­sight and on coun­ter­ing down­tream oil theft, fu­el smug­gling and oth­er il­lic­i­ty hy­dro­car­bon ac­tiv­i­ty and transna­tion­al crime.

He’s known to ad­vise and as­sist gov­ern­ments and or­gan­is­tions on in­ter­na­tion­al law, se­cu­ri­ty and re­la­tions. Ral­by has worked on mat­ters in coun­tries and re­gions glob­al­ly, with par­tic­u­lar ex­per­tise in Africa, the Balka­ns, the Caribbean and South and South­east Asia. Apart from be­ing a con­sul­tant for var­i­ous en­ti­ties and Unit­ed Na­tions or­gans, he’s worked ex­ten­sive­ly with gov­ern­ments on five con­ti­nents to de­vel­op in­ter-agency ap­proach­es to con­fronting the full spec­trum of mar­itime chal­lenges.