Joel Julien

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries has “ac­tive­ly en­gaged” Peren­co T&T fol­low­ing a fire at its Teak AD plat­form which led to three em­ploy­ees be­ing in­jured, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Pene­lope Brad­shaw-Niles has said.

On Tues­day around 3.50 pm when me­chan­ics were per­form­ing main­te­nance on a gas com­pres­sor a fire oc­curred, Hei­di Diquez the Ex­ter­nal Re­la­tions and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er of Peren­co stat­ed yes­ter­day.

“The fire was quick­ly ex­tin­guished, the emer­gency re­sponse pro­ce­dures ac­ti­vat­ed and the plat­forms were shut in. There was no dis­charge of hy­dro­car­bons to the en­vi­ron­ment as a re­sult of the in­ci­dent,” Diquez stat­ed.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, three con­tract em­ploy­ees were in­jured and im­me­di­ate­ly re­ceived med­ical treat­ment on-site. Two of the three in­jured per­sons re­quired fur­ther med­ical treat­ment and were prompt­ly air­lift­ed to shore. Con­se­quent­ly, one per­son was dis­charged af­ter med­ical checks and the oth­er re­mains in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the med­ical fa­cil­i­ty,” she stat­ed.

Diquez said that all rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties and agen­cies were du­ly in­formed and are be­ing kept up­dat­ed.

“A full in­ves­ti­ga­tion with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties has been ini­ti­at­ed,” she stat­ed.

Peren­co, to­geth­er with the con­tract­ing com­pa­ny, is in con­tact with the fam­i­lies and is pro­vid­ing all nec­es­sary sup­port, Diquez stat­ed.

As a re­sult of the in­ci­dent, Brad­shaw-Niles said of­fi­cials from the En­er­gy Min­istry met with Peren­co yes­ter­day.

Peren­co has to pro­vide a re­port to the En­er­gy Min­istry about the in­ci­dent, she said

“Once the re­port is sub­mit­ted we will take it from there,” Brad­shaw-Niles said.

Three months ago a con­trac­tor died while on the com­pa­ny’s Teak, Samaan and Poui (TSP) block off­shore, Trinidad.

The de­ceased in that in­ci­dent An­tho­ny Christo­pher died in his cab­in.

Peren­co said Christo­pher’s death was “non-work re­lat­ed but re­gret­table”.

Peren­co, a Eu­ro­pean oil and gas com­pa­ny, is the op­er­a­tor of the con­sor­tium that man­ages the TSP fields in T&T, with a 70 per cent stake ac­quired in 2016.

The TSP fields are lo­cat­ed 20 km to 45 km from the South­east Coast of Trinidad in deep wa­ter at 55 me­ters.

Peren­co’s part­ners are Trinidad and To­ba­go Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion Petrotrin, and Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, the NGC.