Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The In­ter­na­tion­al Oil Pol­lu­tion Com­pen­sa­tion (IOPC) Fund has re­vealed that it dis­bursed TT$43,974,688 in com­pen­sa­tion to lo­cal en­ti­ties as of De­cem­ber 31, 2025, fol­low­ing the oil spill from the barge Gulf­stream, which ran aground off To­ba­go in Feb­ru­ary 2024.

The fig­ures were de­tailed in the IOPC’s 2025 re­port, which was re­cent­ly re­leased.

For­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who led the past gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to the in­ci­dent, said yes­ter­day, “Thank­ful­ly, the for­mer PNM Cab­i­net saw the mer­it in send­ing me to per­son­al­ly lead a team to the UK, where I ad­vo­cat­ed on be­half of Trinidad and To­ba­go at the IOPC on two oc­ca­sions. This en­sured a de­ci­sion was made in our favour, al­low­ing us to ac­cess the fund’s com­pen­sa­tion mech­a­nisms.”

He added, “There were le­gal hur­dles we had to over­come to ob­tain the or­der we did. I’m hap­py to note to­day that Trinidad and To­ba­go has re­cov­ered, and con­tin­ues to re­cov­er, sig­nif­i­cant sums of mon­ey re­lat­ed to the oil spill.”

On Feb­ru­ary 5, 2024, the barge Gulf­stream—for­mer­ly known as the Sea Em­per­or—with a gross ton­nage of 4,925 GRT, ran aground and cap­sized near Cove Reef in To­ba­go while car­ry­ing crude oil.

A re­port from Oil Spill Re­sponse Ltd (OS­RL) stat­ed that the “ghost barge” had been towed by the tug So­lo Creed from Pana­ma to Guyana. The tug’s crew re­leased the barge af­ter it be­gan list­ing, and af­ter drift­ing for three days, it ran aground off To­ba­go’s south coast.

The spill af­fect­ed sur­round­ing ar­eas, in­clud­ing Kil­gwyn Bay, Ca­noe Bay, and as far as Scar­bor­ough. Ac­cord­ing to the IOPC re­port, the barge dis­charged an es­ti­mat­ed 4,652 met­ric tonnes of fu­el oil along To­ba­go’s coast—equiv­a­lent to over 50,000 bar­rels—con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing man­groves, reefs, and beach­es, and caus­ing long-term eco­log­i­cal dam­age. Fish­ing, tourism, and lo­cal busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty were se­vere­ly im­pact­ed, and some oil drift­ed as far as Bonaire.

The then-En­er­gy Min­istry, un­der Young, as­sist­ed the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA) in mo­bil­is­ing re­sources to man­age the emer­gency. These ef­forts in­clud­ed con­tain­ing the spill, clean­ing af­fect­ed ar­eas, drain­ing the oil from the barge, and re­float­ing it—a process com­plet­ed by Au­gust 2024. The barge was then sailed to Trinidad and an­chored at Sea Lots.

The past gov­ern­ment sought com­pen­sa­tion from the IOPC for those af­fect­ed and launched ef­forts to track the tug and pur­sue le­gal ac­tion against its own­ers. In May 2024, the tug was ar­rest­ed in An­go­la for breach­ing oil field ex­clu­sion zones and re­mained an­chored in Lu­an­da Bay. How­ev­er, the IOPC re­port not­ed that the tug es­caped from ar­rest in No­vem­ber 2024 and “re­mains at large.”

As of De­cem­ber 31, 2025, the IOPC’s 1992 Fund Fo­cal Point Of­fice in Trinidad—es­tab­lished in June 2024—had re­ceived 357 claims to­talling US$48.5 mil­lion. These claims re­lat­ed to clean-up op­er­a­tions in To­ba­go and Bonaire, as well as the fish­eries sec­tor. Of these, 236 claims were as­sessed, with TT$29,803,751 in pay­ments made. The Fund con­tin­ues to en­gage with po­ten­tial claimants and lo­cal au­thor­i­ties to as­cer­tain the full ex­tent of loss­es, with to­tal com­pen­sa­tion paid reach­ing TT$43,974,688.

IOPC Claims Man­ag­er Mark Homan not­ed, “There have been many am­bi­gu­i­ties and un­cer­tain­ties since the in­ci­dent, and de­spite on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, there re­mains a lack of de­fin­i­tive in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the true own­er­ship of the Gulf­stream due to un­ver­i­fied doc­u­men­ta­tion sub­mit­ted to the reg­istry.”

He added, “This has af­fect­ed the han­dling of the in­ci­dent, but not the pro­cess­ing of claims. De­spite the ab­sence of an in­sur­er, the IOPC Fund has served the vic­tims in Trinidad and To­ba­go and paid com­pen­sa­tion in ac­cor­dance with the Con­ven­tion. With the as­sis­tance of lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, we have al­ready been able to swift­ly as­sess and pay a sub­stan­tial pro­por­tion of the clean-up claims sub­mit­ted.”