Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter 

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Even as Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd con­firmed that they are now search­ing for the body of La Ro­main rig work­er Pe­te Phillip, rel­a­tives have not giv­en up hope that he is alive.

Af­ter five days of un­suc­cess­ful search­es for Phillip, Well Ser­vices is­sued a re­lease yes­ter­day stat­ing that they have de­cid­ed to tran­si­tion from a res­cue to re­cov­ery ef­fort.

“Af­ter an ex­ten­sive and thor­ough ef­fort by the ded­i­cat­ed team at Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (Well Ser­vices), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, we have made the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion to tran­si­tion from search and res­cue op­er­a­tions to a search and re­cov­ery phase,” the com­pa­ny said.

“Giv­en the length of time and the chal­leng­ing mar­itime con­di­tions, we have re­gret­ful­ly de­ter­mined that the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sur­vival may be un­like­ly at this time. This de­ci­sion was reached with care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, fol­low­ing a com­pre­hen­sive as­sess­ment of the sit­u­a­tion and in con­sul­ta­tion with recog­nised ex­perts in the field.”

The com­pa­ny as­sured that this phase would be per­formed with the safe­ty of all per­son­nel and re­spect for those af­fect­ed as their top pri­or­i­ty.

“We re­main com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that the search and re­cov­ery is con­duct­ed with the ut­most re­spect, pro­fes­sion­al­ism and sen­si­tiv­i­ty. We con­tin­ue to sup­port the fam­i­lies and loved ones of Mr Phillip. Our prayers and sup­port con­tin­ue to be with them dur­ing this in­cred­i­bly dif­fi­cult time.”

The com­pa­ny added that it would con­tin­ue to pro­vide up­dates as the op­er­a­tion pro­gress­es and the sit­u­a­tion war­rants.

Every day since his dis­ap­pear­ance on De­cem­ber 22, Phillip’s broth­er Brent Phillip and oth­er rel­a­tives have been vis­it­ing and meet­ing with of­fi­cials at the Trin­mar Ma­rine Base in Point Fortin.

Yes­ter­day, Brent said the fam­i­ly is hop­ing for a mir­a­cle that he is still alive.

“We still have our lil hope, but they still search­ing,” said Brent in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

Brent who was at the Trin­mar Base at the time said the com­pa­ny had in­formed them of their de­ci­sion to tran­si­tion to a re­cov­ery ef­fort. He said he un­der­stood why the com­pa­ny be­lieved his broth­er may not be alive, but was thank­ful they were still search­ing.

“They haven’t giv­en up (search­ing for him). Even if it is a one per cent chance (he still alive), we hav­ing it still.”

He said Phillip’s wife and chil­dren were al­so aware of the com­pa­ny’s de­ci­sion and were cop­ing the best that they could un­der the cir­cum­stances.

“Is a process, so they ex­plain every­thing to us and we all un­der­stand. It is not like they say they give up. They still search­ing.”

Since the in­ci­dent on Sun­day, he said the com­pa­ny has been pro­vid­ing them with coun­selling.

“Since day one they have a coun­sel­lor here with us,” he said.

Be­fore the re­lease was is­sued, En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young re­ceived a de­tailed in-per­son brief­ing on the Rig 110 in­ci­dent re­sponse at the Trin­mar Ma­rine Base in Point Fortin yes­ter­day.

Oth­ers present at the brief­ing were Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny man­ag­ing di­rec­tor An­tho­ny Brash, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um CEO Erik Kesku­la and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the re­sponse teams from Well Ser­vices, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and the min­istry.

The re­lease said the com­pa­nies dis­cussed the im­mi­nent ar­rival of ad­di­tion­al in­ter­na­tion­al re­sources in the form of more ex­perts due to ar­rive in T&T yes­ter­day to as­sist in as­sess­ing and ad­vis­ing on the con­tin­u­ing op­er­a­tions.

“Fol­low­ing the meet­ing with the in­ci­dent re­sponse team, Min­is­ter Young met with the moth­er and im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers of Mr Pe­te Phillip who were present and of­fered words of sup­port and com­fort dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time,” a re­lease said.

Since re­ceiv­ing the first brief­ing of the in­ci­dent on De­cem­ber 22, the re­lease added, the min­is­ter has been con­sis­tent­ly in­volved in mon­i­tor­ing the in­ci­dent re­sponse through in-per­son and on­line brief­in­gs.

It said Young thanked the in­ci­dent re­sponse team for their un­wa­ver­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ded­i­ca­tion.

Phillip, 45, was work­ing as a floor­man on Rig 110, which is lo­cat­ed in Her­itage’s off­shore East Field, when the struc­ture par­tial­ly col­lapsed at 3.09 am. Phillip was among 75 per­son­nel on the rig. He is the fa­ther of five and his wife is sev­en months preg­nant.