As search and res­cue ef­forts con­tin­ue for miss­ing off­shore work­er Pe­te Phillip, one of the work­ers who was safe­ly evac­u­at­ed from the Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd oil rig on Sun­day said some of them did not know he was miss­ing un­til they got to their home base in Point Fortin. 

With Phillip’s chance of sur­vival dim­ming with each pass­ing hour, his fam­i­ly is still cling­ing to hope that he will be found alive.

Phillip, a floor­man with Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd, was among 75 per­son­nel on the com­pa­ny’s Rig 110 at 3.09 am on Sun­day when it par­tial­ly col­lapsed. He fell in­to the wa­ter while an­oth­er work­er was in­jured. The oth­er work­ers were safe­ly evac­u­at­ed. 

Yes­ter­day, a work­er who was aboard the rig said they worked on dif­fer­ent shifts and Phillip was work­ing when the in­ci­dent oc­curred. The work­er re­called that he was asleep when he heard a loud noise.

“That is what wake me up. All I had time to do was to get my life vest be­cause the siren come on. It wasn’t a drill. It was the re­al thing. I did not have time to get any­thing but to get a life vest and try to get out.”

He head­ed to the muster point. 

“Every­one was run­ning around, who had to get a vest, who have to get that. It was an ex­pe­ri­ence I don’t want to en­dure again.”

He said even­tu­al­ly, they board­ed the lifeboat. While one of the muster points was not ac­ces­si­ble, he said the evac­u­a­tion process was “smooth” and they were tak­en to the Trin­mar Ma­rine Base in Point Fortin.

He said on­ly found out Phillip was miss­ing when he ar­rived at the base.

He said did not know Phillip on a per­son­al lev­el but he said they worked on two-week work shifts. He said the com­pa­ny has not in­di­cat­ed when they will be re­turn­ing to work.

Phillip’s wife Can­da­cy, who is sev­en months preg­nant, said she was ex­pect­ing him home on Christ­mas Eve.  Phillip has five chil­dren.

Phillip’s broth­er Brent Phillip and oth­er rel­a­tives spent a sec­ond day at the Trin­mar Ma­rine Base hop­ing for good news yes­ter­day.

 He said, “They search­ing but they didn’t find any­thing. Re­mem­ber time gone by, so we hav­ing that hope (that he is alive) but them (of­fi­cials) not sure. They still search­ing. They do­ing with what do­ing.”

He de­scribed as “per­fect and ex­cel­lent” the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and treat­ment met­ed out to them so far by com­pa­ny of­fi­cials.

En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Stu­art Young vis­it­ed the base on Sun­day and met with Phillip’s fam­i­ly. The min­istry said it would be ap­point­ing a team to con­duct a de­tailed in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the in­ci­dent and to pre­pare and sub­mit a com­pre­hen­sive re­port of the find­ings.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh, a for­mer labour min­is­ter, said Phillip’s dis­ap­pear­ance has sent shiv­ers down the spine of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, which is no doubt hav­ing a col­lec­tive flash­back to the dis­ap­pear­ance of the men who were trapped dur­ing the Paria Fu­el div­ing tragedy which claimed the lives of four divers in 2022.   

He said the in­ci­dent at Rig 110, rais­es sev­er­al dis­turb­ing ques­tions that need to be an­swered im­me­di­ate­ly. These ques­tions in­clude: 1) When was the last in­spec­tion of the rig un­der­tak­en by the Min­istry of En­er­gy and by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Agency (OS­HA), and what did that in­spec­tion re­veal?

2) If that in­spec­tion found the rig to be in whole­some con­di­tion, what may have ac­count­ed for the par­tial col­lapse seen over the week­end?

3) Did OS­HA vis­it the site of the ac­ci­dent and shut it down pend­ing an OS­HA in­ves­ti­ga­tion, as is re­quired by law?

4) Is it true that mem­bers of the Coast Guard re­spond­ed to re­quests for as­sis­tance in a res­cue ef­fort at the rig but turned up to the rig with­out div­ing equip­ment?   

In­dars­ingh said al­though the rig is owned by Well Ser­vices, the over­sight au­thor­i­ty is vest­ed in Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, as the oil field is state-owned.

Mean­while, Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union chief ed­u­ca­tion and re­search of­fi­cer Ozzi War­wick de­scribed the in­ci­dent as a tragedy and dis­as­ter. He said the union was col­lect­ing in­for­ma­tion and would make a com­pre­hen­sive state­ment soon.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries as­sured it re­mains ful­ly en­gaged in as­sist­ing Well Ser­vices and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um by pro­vid­ing 24-hour sup­port for the re­sponse. It said Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Pene­lope Brad­shaw-Niles vis­it­ed the Trin­mar Ma­rine Base yes­ter­day, re­ceived an up­date on the res­cue op­er­a­tions and met with Phillip’s fam­i­ly mem­bers.

Her­itage al­so as­sured it is “spar­ing no ef­fort” as the search and res­cue op­er­a­tion con­tin­ues. It said it pro­vid­ed nine sup­port ves­sels which were in­volved in the ini­tial res­cue of per­son­nel on the rig, and re­mains in­volved in the move­ment of ma­te­ri­als, equip­ment and per­son­nel, the con­duct of sur­veys, pro­vi­sion of se­cu­ri­ty, oil spill mon­i­tor­ing, and emer­gency re­sponse. It has al­so pro­vid­ed, through con­trac­tors, top­side drone sur­veil­lance and sub­sea sur­veil­lance by way of divers and re­mote-op­er­at­ed ve­hi­cles.