The Guyana Pow­er and Light Inc. (GPL) is dis­tanc­ing it­self from an oil spill in Trinidad and To­ba­go say­ing it can “un­equiv­o­cal­ly state that the com­pa­ny is not re­lat­ed to this un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent”.

Ear­li­er this month, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) con­firmed that at least two ves­sels were in­volved in the oil spill in­ci­dent that has caused an oil spill im­pact­ing the sis­ter isle of To­ba­go.

In a state­ment, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty said that even as in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing, video footage and oth­er in­for­ma­tion, ob­tained by the TTCG, have con­firmed that the two ves­sels are a tug boat and a barge.

It said the TTCG is col­lab­o­rat­ing with oth­er lo­cal and re­gion­al agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS), the Guyana Coast Guard (GCG), the Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, and IR Con­sil­i­um, through con­sul­tant Dr Ian Ral­by, to iden­ti­fy the ves­sels and their own­ers.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions have thus far re­vealed that the ves­sels ap­pear to have been bound for Guyana. How­ev­er, the Guyanese au­thor­i­ties have con­firmed that nei­ther ves­sel ar­rived as an­tic­i­pat­ed.

Port of Spain has since an­nounced that it is part­ner­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts to re­move the wreck­age of thea barge re­spon­si­ble for the oil spill.

In a state­ment, GPL said that it is aware of the spill that has been im­pact­ing To­ba­go and joins with the rest of Guyana in ex­press­ing its con­cern re­gard­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pli­ca­tions and im­pact on the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The GPL said that it ten­dered for the sup­ply and de­liv­ery of heavy fu­el oil (HFO) in June last year and that six bids were re­ceived.

It said the the ten­der was award­ed on Oc­to­ber 24, last year to the Suri­name-based Staat­solie MaatSchap­pij Suri­name N.V. and that an ad­di­tion­al award for the sup­ply and de­liv­ery of HFO was award­ed to the joint ven­ture Rapid Re­sults Inc. and Os­h­er In­ter­na­tion­al Hold­ings LLC to aug­ment GPL’s in­creas­ing con­sump­tion of HFO and sup­ply re­quire­ments.

“The terms of both con­tracts re­quire the sup­pli­ers to de­liv­er the fu­el to GPL’s ports along the De­mer­ara Riv­er. Ti­tle, own­er­ship, and risk of loss for the fu­el pass­es from the sup­pli­ers to GPL at the dis­charge port. GPL has not re­ceived any no­ti­fi­ca­tion from any of its con­tract­ed fu­el sup­pli­ers that they have en­coun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties with their ves­sel(s) re­sult­ing in the loss of car­go.

“GPL there­fore wish­es to un­equiv­o­cal­ly state that the Com­pa­ny is not re­lat­ed to this un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent,” the com­pa­ny said in its state­ment.

Ear­li­er this week, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Guyana-based Queensway Group Inc., Mo­hamed Qua­lan­der, al­so has de­nied any in­volve­ment in the oil spill.

“I wish to state that I have nev­er owned any fu­el boat and I have nev­er been in­volved in the trad­ing of fu­el in Guyana or any­where else in the world and that I have ab­solute­ly no knowl­edge of or re­la­tion­ship with the ves­sel men­tioned in the Face­book post,” he said.