RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Clean-up op­er­a­tions are con­tin­u­ing by Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration and Primera Oil and Gas Com­pa­ny in Fyz­abad, fol­low­ing the van­dal­ism of a six-inch pipeline which caused oil to con­t­a­m­i­nate wa­ter­cours­es and veg­e­ta­tion there on Thurs­day.

Po­lice said yes­ter­day they are yet to ar­rest the van­dals, who left two threat­en­ing mes­sages at the scene of the crime. On an oil con­tain­ment tank were the words: “Ask Kern where my mon­ey for my pipeline.” On the cut six-inch pipeline, it was writ­ten: “Nigel and Kern, Blood next.”

The sab­o­tage came a week af­ter a gauge hut was set on fire at Gow­ers Well Road, Fyz­abad.

Ear­ly yes­ter­day, a team from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty vis­it­ed the site to as­sess the dam­age. Heavy rains had caused the oil to spread over a ten-acre ra­dius, caus­ing dam­age to live­stock and agri­cul­tur­al fields.

A res­i­dent who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty yes­ter­day said of­fi­cials from Touch­stone had been tak­ing an as­sess­ment of loss­es to pro­vide com­pen­sa­tion.

“The com­pa­ny has been good to us but some peo­ple are tak­ing ad­van­tage of the sit­u­a­tion,” the res­i­dent said.

Some of the af­fect­ed res­i­dents were re­lo­cat­ed to a near­by guest house fol­low­ing the spill on Wednes­day night. How­ev­er, the source re­vealed that some of the neigh­bours en­cour­aged their friends and rel­a­tives to make claims al­though they were not liv­ing in the area.

Some of the house­hold­ers re­turned to the oil-strick­en com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day to take care of their pets and live­stock.

A source at Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration told Guardian Me­dia that they were aware of the false claims, not­ing all re­ports of loss­es will be care­ful­ly ver­i­fied.

On Thurs­day, Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration CEO Paul Baay told Guardian Me­dia the oil line has been iso­lat­ed and mop-up op­er­a­tions were in full swing.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the site there was still an ex­panse of land cov­ered with thick crude. The EMA did air qual­i­ty test­ing and meals were still be­ing pro­vid­ed for the af­fect­ed vil­lagers.

Primera Oil and Gas Lim­it­ed, in a state­ment on Wednes­day, said over 240 bar­rels of oil were spilt when the van­dals cut the pipe. The com­pa­ny’s In­ci­dent Re­sponse Team re­mained on site.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the iden­ti­ties of the van­dals is asked to call Crimestop­pers at 800-TIPS.