In mid-October, the National Hydrocarbon and Chemical Spill Contingency committee launched the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan at Petrotrin in Pointe-a-Pierre.It was an appropriate location. In T&T's economy, gas may be today's moneyspinner, but oil production and refinement has long been the backbone of the sector.Speaking to energy-sector leaders at that event, Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine called on participants to increase production.
"The mandate falls heavily on the shoulders of Petrotrin and the people in this room from the lease-operator farm-out community, to begin to turn that curve upwards, because we have bottomed out and we have arrested the decline in oil production and we have to begin to turn that curve upwards," Ramnarine said.
What nobody seems to have planned for was the astonishing experience of December, which saw 11 leaks from oil lines either owned by Petrotrin or operated by its business partners which led to staggering level of contamination along the southern peninsula of the Gulf of Paria.
Two weeks after the scope of the oil spill along the southwestern peninsula of the Gulf of Paria became evident, there remains no comprehensive statement from the Ministry of Energy and Energy Resources, Petrotrin or any of its partner companies operating oil wells or, indeed from the energy sector about this growing disaster.
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