Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

An off­shore work­er who fell in­to the sea af­ter a drilling rig in the East Sol­da­do Field par­tial­ly col­lapsed re­mained miss­ing up to last evening.

As the hours passed dur­ing the search for him yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives of 47-year-old Pe­te Phillip prayed for a Christ­mas mir­a­cle.

Phillip was among a crew aboard Rig 110 when it par­tial­ly col­lapsed. An­oth­er work­er was in­jured.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Well Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, which op­er­ates the rig, stat­ed that the in­ci­dent oc­curred at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3.09 am but gave no de­tails about what hap­pened.

The re­port stat­ed that an in­ci­dent oc­curred aboard Well Ser­vices Rig 110 in the Her­itage Off­shore East Field. Sev­en­ty-five per­son­nel were on­board the rig en­gaged in drilling ac­tiv­i­ties at the time, it said.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the in­ci­dent re­sult­ed in one in­jury, but the in­di­vid­ual was in sta­ble con­di­tion and re­ceiv­ing med­ical care.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, one per­son is miss­ing, and search and res­cue ef­forts are un­der­way. All oth­er per­son­nel have been safe­ly evac­u­at­ed from the rig.”

En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said he re­ceived his first brief­ing on the in­ci­dent at 3.30 am and con­firmed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched in­to the in­ci­dent.

An up­dat­ed me­dia state­ment from the min­istry last evening con­firmed that Rig 110 was owned and op­er­at­ed by Well Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, and lo­cat­ed with­in the Her­itage Off­shore East Field. It said the min­is­ter vis­it­ed the Trin­mar Ma­rine Base to re­ceive in-per­son brief­in­gs on the on­go­ing in­ci­dent man­age­ment and met Phillip’s fam­i­ly mem­bers.

“Min­is­ter Young of­fered his prayers and words of sup­port to the fam­i­ly mem­bers present at this dif­fi­cult time,” the re­lease said.

The min­istry as­sured that it has been ful­ly en­gaged in as­sist­ing Well Ser­vices and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um.

Fur­ther, it said the min­istry will be ap­point­ing a team to con­duct a de­tailed in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the in­ci­dent and to pre­pare and sub­mit a com­pre­hen­sive re­port of the find­ings.

The min­istry had a team on the ground mon­i­tor­ing the re­sponse op­er­a­tions. Teams from OS­HA, Well Ser­vices and Her­itage were al­so present.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Phillip’s home in La Ro­main at mid­day yes­ter­day, his sev­en-month-preg­nant wife, Can­da­cy Phillip, was at home with four of his chil­dren and was cry­ing un­con­trol­lably. His youngest child is three years old.

Through her tears and whim­pers, she said a com­pa­ny of­fi­cial vis­it­ed her yes­ter­day morn­ing and as­sured her they were “look­ing for him,” but she had no up­dat­ed in­for­ma­tion.

She said she last spoke to her hus­band af­ter 7 pm on Sat­ur­day. She said they were ex­pect­ing Phillip back home with them on Christ­mas Eve. She said he worked off­shore for more than 20 years and worked in var­i­ous po­si­tions, in­clud­ing a floor­man and der­rick­man.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view at 12.30 pm, Phillip’s old­er broth­er, Brent Phillip, said he was not aware of the de­tails sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent or res­cue ef­forts but said he was not sat­is­fied with some of the in­for­ma­tion he heard.

“If what I hear­ing is true, we did not learn noth­ing from the event that took place by Her­itage two or three years ago, noth­ing changed. From what I hear­ing, this is mad­ness, but I don’t want to say much,” he said, re­fer­ring to the Paria Fu­el div­ing tragedy in 2022.

He called for a full-scale in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“We not hear­ing noth­ing be­cause we did not hear if they find the body, if he alive, if he not alive. Noth­ing con­firmed. We don’t know if they search­ing if they fin­ish search.”

He said they first learnt of the in­ci­dent from work­ers. Brent and oth­er rel­a­tives were lat­er al­lowed in­to Trin­mar Ma­rine Base, as they await­ed word on Phillip’s sta­tus.

Mean­while, the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team, led by Val­lance Ramb­harat, car­ried out a few sea pa­trols near the rig but was told that divers were search­ing for Phillip.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards about the in­ci­dent, Ramb­harat said Well Ser­vices had in­di­cat­ed that “one of the legs on the jack-up rig was com­pro­mised, which led to a tilt.” Mean­while, Well Ser­vices as­sured that of­fi­cials were in con­tact with Phillip’s fam­i­ly and were pro­vid­ing all nec­es­sary sup­port and as­sis­tance in this pe­ri­od of un­cer­tain­ty. The com­pa­ny al­so dis­missed false so­cial me­dia re­ports that Phillip had been found and was in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the res­cue team. The com­pa­ny said it would pro­vide ac­cu­rate and time­ly up­dates as the sit­u­a­tion de­vel­oped.

Up to last evening, how­ev­er, there were no fur­ther up­dates from the com­pa­ny.

Paria Fu­el tragedy in­to fo­cus again

The in­ci­dent oc­curred al­most three years af­ter four divers died in an in­ci­dent at a Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s off­shore fa­cil­i­ty.

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, LM­CS divers Yusuf Hen­ry, Fyzal Kur­ban, Rishi Nages­sar, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Christo­pher Boodram were do­ing main­te­nance works at Berth 6 at the Paria’s off­shore fa­cil­i­ty in Pointe-a-Pierre, when they were sucked in­to a 30-inch pipeline. Boodram sur­vived. Paria was ac­cused of block­ing a res­cue mis­sion.

The Jer­mone Lynch Com­mis­sion of In­quiry re­port had rec­om­mend­ed that Paria face cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter charges and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion Roger Gas­pard has or­dered a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

How­ev­er, 15 charges un­der the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act were brought against Paria and LM­CS of­fi­cials who have plead­ed not guilty.