Renu­ka Singh

The failed pipeline be­hind the first mas­sive ma­rine-based oil leak that has af­fect­ed the south-west­ern coast­line may not have un­der­gone ma­jor in­spec­tions for al­most two decades, a con­fi­den­tial re­port com­mis­sioned by state-owned Petrotrin has shown.The pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion and re­port, which was sub­mit­ted to the se­niors at Petrotrin on De­cem­ber 24, al­so showed ev­i­dence of poor main­te­nance, which the re­port said re­sult­ed in more than 7,000 bar­rels of oil be­ing leaked in­to the Gulf of Paria on De­cem­ber 17.

The re­port was or­dered af­ter the De­cem­ber 17 oil spill which start­ed off Petrotrin's Pointe-a-Pierre base, but then spread rapid­ly to oth­er ar­eas of the south-west­ern penin­su­la.De­tails of the re­port sur­faced yes­ter­day, a day af­ter a high-pow­ered Petrotrin team, speak­ing to the me­dia af­ter meet­ing with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, said two of the 11 leaks found since the first oc­curred at Pointe-a-Pierre were acts of sab­o­tage and had since been re­port­ed to the po­lice.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the first leak found that a failed con­nec­tion be­tween an oil tanker and a barge at Point-a-Pierre leaked 7,453 bar­rels of bunker fu­el in­to the sea, which sub­se­quent­ly trig­gered the mas­sive oil spills along the south-west­ern coast­line that are still af­fect­ing res­i­dents in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, with La Brea be­ing the worst hit.

The sev­en-page re­port, ti­tled "Pre­lim­i­nary In­ves­tiga­tive Re­port in­to In­ci­dent," was done in­ter­nal­ly by and for Petrotrin and was sub­mit­ted to the com­pa­ny se­niors on Christ­mas Eve. The in­ves­tiga­tive team was head­ed by Mervyn Cum­mings and in­clud­ed four oth­er em­ploy­ees.It list­ed nine find­ings and eight con­clu­sions and de­tailed the events that led to the ini­tial ma­rine spillage.

Lim­it­ed probe

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion, how­ev­er, was re­strict­ed to just the Pointe-a-Pierre leak. In fact, the in­ves­tiga­tive team not­ed in the re­port that while they were prob­ing that leak, sev­er­al oth­er leaks at Petrotrin ma­rine in­stal­la­tions had been re­port­ed, but that these were be­yond their re­mit.

On Thurs­day, af­ter a meet­ing with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Petrotrin of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing pres­i­dent Khalid Has­sanali and chair­man Lind­sey Gillette, said "spe­cial­ist tools" were used to start two of the leaks and claimed acts of sab­o­tage led to two of the 11 spills.The Petrotrin team had told the coun­cil it was found that two three-inch bull plugs were re­moved from the Ran­cho Que­ma­do well and a 16-inch flange from Ris­er Plat­form Five at Point Fortin was de­lib­er­ate­ly tam­pered with.

"You need a very large wrench to re­move the plugs. At Ris­er, there are pic­tures of the oil spurt­ing out. You have to loosen the nut for the oil to spill," Gillette said.The pre­lim­i­nary re­port and the find­ings for the ma­rine-based spill at Pointe-a-Pierre did not cite acts of sab­o­tage, but in­stead raised lack of main­te­nance and pipeline fail­ure as lead­ing to cir­cum­stances where the line be­came com­pro­mised.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­so found "sheared," "bro­ken" and "un­con­nect­ed" ex­pan­sion joints and beams, which failed dur­ing the tran­mis­sion of fu­el from one oil tank to the Mara­bel­la barge, were the prob­lem which sparked off the oil leak. It not­ed, how­ev­er, that the line in ques­tion "has not un­der­gone a ma­jor in­spec­tion in over 17 years."The in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­so found that aer­i­al sur­veys in­di­cat­ed that at one point, the slick cre­at­ed from the oil spill was more than 4,500 feet long.

"The No 10 S/L 16-inch ex­pan­sion joint was found to be com­plete­ly sheared (sta­tion­ary end) from the flange con­nect­ing the joint to the up­stream pip­ing," the re­port said.One en­er­gy ex­pert said yes­ter­day that a flange is the con­nec­tor be­tween two pieces of pipe and if that failed it would mean a break in the trans­mis­sion."The sender would not know there was a prob­lem, the re­ceiv­er would when there would be no out­put on his end," the ex­pert said.

The re­port did say com­plaints were made about a low load­ing rate, which was why the De­cem­ber 17 load­ing was sus­pend­ed.Ques­tions on the re­port were posed to both Petrotrin of­fi­cials and Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Kevin Ram­nar­ine via e-mail yes­ter­day.

Lawyers re­spond

The T&T Guardian last evening re­ceived a re­sponse to those ques­tions from lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the state com­pa­ny which de­scribed the re­port as "priv­i­leged," "con­fi­den­tial" and "in­cor­rect.In the at­tor­neys' let­ter to the T&T Guardian, the com­pa­ny al­so said that the 7,453 bar­rels of leaked oil cost US$95 per bar­rel, which trans­lates in­to rough­ly TT$4.5 mil­lion.

Petrotrin's at­tor­neys, on be­half of the com­pa­ny, stat­ed that the lines had been checked "re­cent­ly," but did not say whether it was be­fore or af­ter the leaks de­vel­oped last month."Our records re­veal that more re­cent in­spec­tions have tak­en place on the spe­cif­ic Sea Line (No. 10), and al­so, the en­tire pip­ing sys­tem has been sub­se­quent­ly in­spect­ed in its en­tire­ty," it said.

It not­ed too that "at Petrotrin, there is a planned pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance pro­gramme that re­quires reg­u­lar in­spec­tions of our lines and equip­ment. At this time, Petrotrin is un­able to con­clude that poor main­te­nance led to any in­ci­dent. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing."

The at­tor­neys added that in­spec­tions could be 'ma­jor' or 'mi­nor' based on the scope and method­olo­gies utilised. In­spec­tion in­cludes: ul­tra­sound tests for line thick­ness, vi­su­al checks of the gen­er­al con­di­tion of the line; vi­su­al in­spec­tion of the sup­ports; cor­ro­sion on the line; leaks on the line, valves, flanges and ex­pan­sion joints.Petrotrin's at­tor­neys al­so said that the doc­u­ment was a "pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­tiga­tive re­port" and was used to "gath­er ev­i­dence for use in pro­ceed­ings and is there­fore priv­i­leged."

The state-com­pa­ny al­so stat­ed that "Petrotrin is un­able to con­clude that poor main­te­nance led to any in­ci­dent."Petrotrin's at­tor­neys said: An im­me­di­ate in­tegri­ty check of the en­tire as­set is be­ing con­duct­ed."