GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Dam­aged oil tanker Nabari­ma is re­al­ly tilt­ing.

With pic­tures tak­en yes­ter­day show­ing the oil tanker tilt­ing in the wa­ter, Venezuela has agreed to Gov­ern­ment’s re­quest to do an of­fi­cial in­spec­tion of the ves­sel on Tues­day.

And the US Em­bassy, which is sup­port­ing moves to have the ves­sel brought up to stan­dard, has as­sured its sanc­tions against Venezuela doesn’t tar­get such ac­tiv­i­ties and in­sists Venezuela must fix the ves­sel.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne con­firmed to the T&T Guardian last night that Venezuela has fi­nal­ly agreed to fa­cil­i­tate T&T’s in­spec­tion of the ves­sel.

“Gov­ern­ment has main­tained its se­ri­ous con­cern about this ves­sel’s sta­bil­i­ty and the en­vi­ron­men­tal threat to the Gulf of Paria and we’ve al­so been in touch with the US Em­bassy on the is­sue all the way up to yes­ter­day (Thurs­day),” Browne said.

Browne spoke as the Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea group yes­ter­day went to sea and took pic­tures of the ves­sel, which sits in the Gulf of Paria loaded with 1.3 mil­lion bar­rels of oil.

Nabari­ma’s been a source of con­cern as a po­ten­tial en­vi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter since Ju­ly when it be­gan tak­ing on wa­ter and was list­ing to the right. Venezue­lan state-owned PDVSA oil com­pa­ny, which op­er­ates the ves­sel, as­sured is­sues were fixed and it was sta­ble. Af­ter in­ter­na­tion­al news re­ports on the ves­sel’s prob­lems, how­ev­er, Gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed to get in­de­pen­dent ver­i­fi­ca­tion.

An in­spec­tion team com­pris­ing Coast Guard, En­er­gy Min­istry, In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs and oth­er of­fi­cials was or­gan­ised to com­plete an in­spec­tion of the ves­sel in Sep­tem­ber. But per­mis­sion is need­ed by T&T to en­ter Venezue­lan ju­ris­dic­tion and the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry was told by Venezuela au­thor­i­ties the vis­it couldn’t be done be­fore Oc­to­ber 20.

How­ev­er, FFOS showed Sep­tem­ber 1 pic­tures show­ing the ves­sel had a five-de­gree tilt and al­so dis­played pic­tures tak­en ear­li­er this week by Venezue­lans show­ing it’s now tilt­ing at 20 de­grees.

Con­cerned the ves­sel would cap­size, FFOS gen­er­al sec­re­tary Gary Aboud un­der­took a nine-hour trip yes­ter­day to the ves­sel. Their ves­sel cir­cled the Nabari­ma at a dis­tance and sent up a drone to take pho­tos. Peo­ple on Nabari­ma’s deck stood look­ing at them,

Aboud said,”The ves­sel is tilt­ing at 25 to 30 de­grees and in­creas­ing. Its an­chor chains are taut, un­der ex­treme pres­sure. What if these an­chor chains break and the ves­sel cap­sizes and spills the oil in­to our fish­ery ecosys­tem?

“There’s been no third-par­ty dis­clo­sure whether the oil is in sealed or se­cure com­part­ments. Some might say we had no busi­ness go­ing there but we have a du­ty to the 50,000 fish­er­men and every­one else in the Caribbean Sea.”

He added, “Mis­in­for­ma­tion re­leased by the Maduro regime claim­ing the ves­sel is sta­ble and which our Gov­ern­ment seems to ac­cept ... PM Row­ley, we call on you to act ur­gent­ly! The Caribbean Sea is en­dan­gered. Your si­lence won’t be for­giv­en.”

Yes­ter­day morn­ing as the FFOS did its in­spec­tion, Browne’s min­istry de­tailed T&T’s ef­forts to get Venezuela to agree to the in­spec­tion.

“Since ini­tial re­ports, Gov­ern­ment con­sis­tent­ly utilised all avail­able chan­nels to press for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the ves­sel’s sta­tus. Our Min­istry, En­er­gy, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty have all been ac­tive­ly work­ing on so­lu­tions,” the min­istry said.

The min­istry said the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment in­di­cat­ed the ves­sel was in­deed tilt­ing some time ago but em­pha­sised they’d con­duct­ed ini­tial sta­bil­i­sa­tion works and it “was no longer in dan­ger.” Gov­ern­ment then im­me­di­ate­ly sought ac­tu­al ver­i­fi­ca­tion.

The min­istry said on Thurs­day the Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­scribed as “to­tal pro­pa­gan­da” a new pho­to­graph of the ves­sel pur­port­ed­ly tilt­ing. The min­istry said the Am­bas­sador claimed the pho­to­graph was ac­tu­al­ly tak­en over one month ago be­fore sta­bil­i­sa­tion work was done but was now be­ing used as a cur­rent pho­to in an ef­fort to mis­lead.

The min­istry said Gov­ern­ment has used all avail­able chan­nels to ver­i­fy the truth of the sit­u­a­tion and achieve ac­cess. It sai it had held talks with the Am­bas­sador of Venezuela to Port-of-Spain, Venezuela’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter and oth­er se­nior Venezue­lan of­fi­cials, T&T’s Am­bas­sador to Cara­cas and the US Am­bas­sador.

“Our Gov­ern­ment main­tains its con­cerns about the threat to the en­vi­ron­ment and con­tin­ues to seek the best for our peo­ple. Our ex­pert in­spec­tion team’s ready to pro­ceed,” it said.

Mean­while, the US Em­bassy said yes­ter­day it was con­cerned over the po­ten­tial risk to safe­ty and the en­vi­ron­ment posed by the ves­sel and said it will fa­cil­i­tate moves to re­solve the is­sue.

“We strong­ly sup­port im­me­di­ate ac­tions to bring the Nabari­ma up to in­ter­na­tion­al safe­ty stan­dards and avoid pos­si­ble en­vi­ron­men­tal harm, which could neg­a­tive­ly im­pact not on­ly the Venezue­lan peo­ple but al­so those in near­by coun­tries,” the US Em­bassy said in a state­ment.

“PDVSA has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to take ac­tion to avoid an en­vi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter in Venezue­lan wa­ters. As a gen­er­al mat­ter, the Unit­ed States’ Venezuela sanc­tions pro­gramme is not de­signed to tar­get ac­tiv­i­ties ad­dress­ing safe­ty, en­vi­ron­men­tal, or hu­man­i­tar­i­an con­cerns. These ac­tiv­i­ties to avert an eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ter are con­sis­tent with US pol­i­cy to sup­port the Venezue­lan peo­ple and avoid fur­ther harm to the en­vi­ron­ment.”