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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Gulfstream in Trinidad after 30-hour voyage from Cove

by

187 days ago
20240823
The arrival of the convoy escorting the Gulfstream at Sea Lots.

The arrival of the convoy escorting the Gulfstream at Sea Lots.

MINISTRY OF ENERGY AND ENERGY INDUSTRIES

Se­nior Re­porter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Six months af­ter wreak­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal hav­oc on To­ba­go’s Wind­ward coast, the mys­te­ri­ous Gulf­stream barge is in Port-of-Spain and un­der­go­ing prepa­ra­tion for stor­age.

The 100-me­tre-long ves­sel be­came the sub­ject of en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cern and po­lit­i­cal de­bate af­ter Feb­ru­ary 7 when the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency re­ceived re­ports of a cap­sized ship off the coast of Cove.

A thick, oil-like sub­stance was wash­ing up on near­by coast­lines and span­ning beach­es from Rock­ley Bay to Ca­noe Bay. Lab­o­ra­to­ry tests re­vealed that it was bunker fu­el. It was un­clear when the barge cap­sized, what hap­pened, who was on board, who owned it and its des­ti­na­tion.

The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI) re­port­ed that it suc­cess­ful­ly float­ed the par­tial­ly sunken barge at 11.54 pm on Mon­day. In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the MEEI said that two tug boats from the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion towed the barge from Cove, To­ba­go, to Sea Lots, in its over­turned state, in a 30-hour voy­age.

The MEEI said the op­er­a­tion fol­lowed the di­rec­tion of tech­ni­cal ex­perts from T&T Sal­vage LLC and QT En­vi­ron­men­tal. A Pol­lu­tion Task Force com­pris­ing lo­cal re­spon­ders and crews equipped with NOFI Cur­rent Buster Sys­tems and Rapid De­ploy­ment Skim­mer Sys­tems (RDSS) at­tached to QT En­vi­ron­men­tal fol­lowed the tugs to fa­cil­i­tate the im­me­di­ate cap­ture and re­cov­ery of any resid­ual hy­dro­car­bons if need­ed.

“The MEEI re­port­ed that the tran­sit of the barge pro­gressed smooth­ly and on sched­ule. AD­CI-cer­ti­fied divers com­plet­ed sur­vey as­sess­ments of the barge at 5.25 pm on Au­gust 21 off Cha­cachacare, Trinidad.

The re­sults of this sur­vey pro­vid­ed the as­sur­ance need­ed for the ves­sel to en­ter the Sea Lots chan­nel. The last stage of the jour­ney to Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain, was com­plet­ed at 6.43 am,” the me­dia re­lease stat­ed.

The MEEI said weath­er con­di­tions cou­pled with high and low tides were two prin­ci­pal fac­tors gov­ern­ing the tim­ing and ex­e­cu­tion of the re-float and tow ex­er­cise.
The MEEI said the last phase of the op­er­a­tion en­tails tech­ni­cal ex­perts prepar­ing the barge for stor­age. They will then of­fi­cial­ly hand over the barge to the Di­rec­tor of Mar­itime Ser­vices Lt Cm­dr Ronald Al­fred, as the Prin­ci­pal Re­ceiv­er of Wrecks.

“The Prin­ci­pal Re­ceiv­er of Wrecks is em­pow­ered un­der the Ship­ping Act to ex­er­cise gen­er­al di­rec­tion and su­per­vi­sion over all mat­ters re­lat­ing to wrecks and sal­vage. This han­dover will rep­re­sent the com­ple­tion of the scope of op­er­a­tions han­dled by the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and its in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, T&T Sal­vage/QT En­vi­ron­men­tal,” the MEEI said.

Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young thanked every­one in­volved in the oil spill con­tain­ment ef­forts and trans­port­ed the Gulf­stream safe­ly to Trinidad for dis­pos­al. Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Young to as­cer­tain whether au­thor­i­ties iden­ti­fied and con­tact­ed the own­er of the barge and if the State can move ahead with a law­suit. How­ev­er, there was no re­sponse.

 


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