A former Minister of Energy says it is good that current energy minister, Stuart Young, has sought compensation for the Tobago oil spill from the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund.
Kevin Ramnarine commended the minister and his team for their response to the oil spill, pointing out that the extent of the disaster could have been much worse had they not acted as swiftly as they did to manage its impact.
However, the former minister believes that the spill—which occurred on February 7, 2024, and affected nearly 45 kilometres of coastline—could be the largest oil spill that has occurred in local waters.
“It happened in 1978, the largest oil spill in the history of Trinidad and Tobago, involving two vessels off Tobago,” he recalled. “And during my tenure as minister, there were a number of oil spills—the most prominent one being the La Brea oil spill in 2013/2014. And it happened a couple times after on a smaller scale in the Gulf of Paria.”
“But when the dust is settled with this oil spill in Tobago, this might be the largest oil spill that we’ve ever had in this country. And to this day, we still don’t know who the owners [of the vessel] are,” he added.
Kevin Ramnarine is suggesting that Government move with alacrity to bring to Parliament important legislation that would serve to better protect this country’s environmental and biodiversity resources.
“We live in an environment where we have a lot of oil traffic taking place,” he observed. “Ships moving up and down, not just having something to do with Trinidad, but ships moving through our Exclusive Economic Zone transiting fuel to different parts of the world.”
“So, we need to be wary that these things could happen again,” Ramnarine said.
During a press conference yesterday, Energy Minister Stuart Young revealed that the cost of the oil spill’s clean-up operations could reach as high as US$30 million.