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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Relative of man killed in NiQuan accident: Someone should be held accountable

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40 days ago
20250620
Allanlane Ramkissoon who died days after being severely burnt during an explosion at NiQuan Plant in June 2023.

Allanlane Ramkissoon who died days after being severely burnt during an explosion at NiQuan Plant in June 2023.

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The sis­ter of Al­lan­lane Ramkissoon, who died on June 18, 2023, af­ter suf­fer­ing se­vere burns in an ex­plo­sion at the Ni­Quan En­er­gy Trinidad Ltd (NETL) Gas-to-Liq­uids (GTL), be­lieves some­one should be held ac­count­able now that the re­port in­to his death is pub­lic.

On Wednes­day in the Par­lia­ment, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Dr Roodal Mooni­lal made pub­lic the re­port in­to the in­ci­dent which re­vealed “in­ad­e­quate lead­er­ship and su­per­vi­sion” led to the in­ci­dent.

The re­port out­lined sev­er­al short­com­ings that led to the ac­ci­dent, high­light­ing in­suf­fi­cient train­ing, in­com­plete pro­to­cols, and the ne­glect of es­sen­tial safe­ty mea­sures.

Ac­cord­ing to the find­ings, 35-year-old Ramkissoon was in the process of de­tach­ing a ni­tro­gen hose and wait­ing for a steam hose when a fire broke out near the con­denser con­nect­ed to the fa­cil­i­ty’s frac­tion­a­tion col­umn.

The re­port not­ed that no di­rec­tive was giv­en to close the valve be­fore de­tach­ing the hose.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ir­reg­u­lar con­di­tions in the wax tank may have caused hy­dro­car­bon vapours to flow back­wards, re­sult­ing in ig­ni­tion.

Com­ment­ing on the re­port be­ing fi­nal­ly re­leased, Al­lan­lane’s sis­ter, Ruth Ramkissoon, said yes­ter­day, “You know, well, it’s a re­lief to know that we got light on that. So, you know, we are feel­ing a bit re­lieved, even though this can­not fill the void.”

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Ramkissoon said now that the re­port has point­ed to short­com­ings on the com­pa­ny’s part, she be­lieves ac­count­abil­i­ty is the next step, even if it means that some­one faces crim­i­nal charges.

“Some­one should be held ac­count­able be­cause it is his life, and it seemed like it was swept un­der the car­pet, un­der the rug, and it wasn’t ad­dressed prop­er­ly. It’s like, you know, like his life didn’t mat­ter to them.”

Af­ter the in­ci­dent, the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency (OS­HA) is­sued a pro­hi­bi­tion or­der, halt­ing op­er­a­tions at the Ni­Quan plant.

The Min­istry of En­er­gy ini­tial­ly with­held the in­ves­tiga­tive re­port, cit­ing le­gal ad­vice and lack of con­sent from Ni­Quan. Ramkissoon’s wid­ow, Sarah Ramkissoon, filed a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) re­quest for the re­port. High Court Judge Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams ruled on June 6, that the min­istry’s re­fusal was un­law­ful and that dis­clo­sure of the re­port was a mat­ter of sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est.

Ruth Ramkissoon said the fam­i­ly was des­per­ate to know the truth, how­ev­er, she be­lieves fate guid­ed the process.

“We knew in God’s tim­ing every­thing would have come out, be­cause we re­al­ly want­ed the truth. We were able to, not heal ful­ly, but con­tin­ue to trust that we would get jus­tice, we would get the truth.”

She said the fam­i­ly is still strug­gling to cope with Al­lan­lane’s death.

“We are miss­ing him a lot. The mem­o­ries of him are still alive in our hearts. And we be­lieve that he is with his mak­er and God has com­fort­ed us and still com­fort­ing us. So it is hard, but not as when it had hap­pened. As I say, we are heal­ing. And we know we can­not get him back, but he is with his mak­er.”


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