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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Survivor of rig collapse: An experience I don’t want to endure again

by

Sascha Wilson
57 days ago
20241224
The collapsed Rig 110, where rig worker Pete Phillip was on duty on Sunday.

The collapsed Rig 110, where rig worker Pete Phillip was on duty on Sunday.

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.


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