RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of En­er­gy is now seek­ing for­eign as­sis­tance to cap off a well which is spew­ing high pres­sures of oil and gas, 40 feet from the seabed in the Gulf of Paria, near the Cou­va oil plat­form.

Lo­cat­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4.5 nau­ti­cal miles off Or­ange Val­ley, Cara­pichaima, the well has been shoot­ing ex­ten­sive hy­dro­car­bons in the Gulf since Thurs­day, pos­ing se­ri­ous risk to ma­rine op­er­a­tors.

In a let­ter sent to Petrotrin hours af­ter the blow-out oc­curred, the Min­istry of En­er­gy re­quest­ed im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance to cap off the well. Divers were sent down to in­spect the blow-out and re­al­ized that it was com­ing from the seabed.

Petrotrin per­son­nel did not have the tech­no­log­i­cal abil­i­ty to cap off the well and lat­er alert­ed the min­istry. A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said the min­istry has been seek­ing as­sis­tance from ser­vice com­pa­nies in the Unit­ed States with the tech­nol­o­gy to cap the well.

A log of the well is ex­pect­ed to be pro­vid­ed to the com­pa­ny be­fore any work is done.

"We ex­pect that a drilling barge will be sent in to side track on­to the cas­ing and pump ce­ment in­side to kill the well. It all de­pends on the rec­om­men­da­tions they make af­ter they view the well file. We are hop­ing that the Min­istry of En­er­gy has a log of this well. From what we are see­ing, the well has al­ready been aban­doned and was capped off from the seabed," a source said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, chair­man of the EMA Nadra Nathai-Gyan said "The EMA is aware of this and we are part of the team that is mon­i­tor­ing the progress of the well. We are at­tend­ing all the ses­sions and we are there on a first-hand ba­sis to see what can be done.

"It is a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion and the min­istry has asked for in­ter­na­tion­al help. A meet­ing was held yes­ter­day and a re­port is ex­pect­ed as they try to bring the sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol."

Fish­er­men have been stay­ing away from the vicin­i­ty of the spillage and are pray­ing that their boats and nets do not be­come con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.

Put up warn­ing signs—Aboud

Mean­while, sec­re­tary of Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea Gary Aboud called on mariners to steer clear of the site as it was volatile and high­ly flam­ma­ble.

Aboud said the area was un­lit and there were no nav­i­ga­tion­al warn­ings for on­com­ing ves­sels.

"Ves­sels are warned to stay up­wind of this gas plume which may ig­nite or ex­plode and is high­ly nox­ious," Aboud said. He said a team from FF­SO vis­it­ed yes­ter­day.

"We have video footage show­ing that this is an ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous and high­ly pres­sur­ized well rup­ture, spew­ing a gaseous aro­mat­ic hy­dro­car­bon mixed with a mud­dy sub­stance. This gaseous sludge is cov­er­ing the sea for miles."

He said "six days af­ter this or­phaned off­shore oil/gas plat­form erupt­ed the Min­istry of En­er­gy stat­ed that they are still try­ing to ac­cess which pri­vate com­pa­ny was in charge of that well be­fore the min­istry took it over.”

Aboud ques­tioned whether the min­istry has been keep­ing a prop­er records of wells.

"Is the min­istry in­ca­pable of re­spond­ing to an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion like this? Do we have the ca­pac­i­ty to en­sure pub­lic safe­ty from the oil and gas sec­tor? Who is the re­spon­si­ble par­ty? Noth­ing has been done all week. When will this pub­lic en­dan­ger­ment be con­tained?" Aboud asked.

He said there are hun­dreds of decades old, capped, or­phaned or aban­doned wells which may not have been prop­er­ly de­com­mis­sioned and are cor­rod­ing.

"Where are the main­te­nance sched­ules for aban­doned plat­forms or capped wells? When was the last time the Min­istry of En­er­gy did a safe­ty in­spec­tion of the hun­dreds of aban­doned wells in our mar­itime wa­ters and on­shore sites?" he asked.

He al­so ques­tioned why there have been no warn­ings to pro­tect fish­er­men.