Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, Ernesto Ke­sar, will lead an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to re­ports of a sick­out at the Teak, Samaan, and Poui (TSP) fields.

In a me­dia re­lease on Thurs­day, the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI) said the en­quiry aims to up­hold work­ers’ pro­tec­tion stan­dards while avoid­ing dis­rup­tions to on­go­ing ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion. The probe fol­lows a week-long co­or­di­nat­ed protest by around 25 pro­duc­tion op­er­a­tors across nine off­shore plat­forms in the TSP fields. Work­ers staged the sick­out to draw at­ten­tion, to what they called, poor work­ing con­di­tions, in­clud­ing de­layed salary pay­ments, lack of med­ical and life in­sur­ance, in­ad­e­quate per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment, and poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion from man­age­ment.

Al­though Peren­co op­er­ates the plat­forms, the af­fect­ed work­ers are sub­con­tract­ed through Sookhai En­gi­neer­ing and Rental Ser­vices Ltd (SER­SL). Em­ploy­ees claimed hourly wages as low as $70, with de­lays of up to nine weeks in pay­ment and fre­quent is­sues sur­round­ing sev­er­ance pay. While SER­SL de­nies any pro­duc­tion loss­es, work­ers claim out­put has fall­en. They are now call­ing for in­ter­ven­tion from Peren­co, trade unions, or the MEEI.

The Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) ex­pressed con­cern over the al­leged ex­ploita­tion of non-unionised labour and called for greater union­i­sa­tion to safe­guard work­ers’ safe­ty and dig­ni­ty.

Peren­co stat­ed that al­though the sick-out has af­fect­ed op­er­a­tional ser­vices, pro­duc­tion re­mains un­af­fect­ed. The com­pa­ny said it has main­tained com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials through­out the dis­rup­tion.

The MEEI not­ed that both Ke­sar and Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Dr Roodal Mooni­lal have reaf­firmed the im­por­tance of ob­serv­ing health, safe­ty, and en­vi­ron­men­tal (HSE) pro­to­cols across the en­er­gy sec­tor. They em­pha­sised that HSE and strong labour re­la­tions are vi­tal to on­go­ing ef­forts to in­crease pro­duc­tion and meet both do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al en­er­gy de­mands.

The re­lease added that Peren­co re­mains in di­rect con­tact with the En­er­gy min­is­ters and con­firmed: “The pro­vi­sion of op­er­a­tions ser­vices is be­ing af­fect­ed, but pro­duc­tion has not been im­pact­ed.”

Peren­co has al­so in­struct­ed its op­er­a­tional sup­port ser­vices sub­con­trac­tor to re­solve the dis­pute swift­ly. The MEEI said both min­is­ters re­main com­mit­ted to work­ing with op­er­a­tors to align ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion ef­forts with na­tion­al ob­jec­tives—name­ly, ad­vanc­ing pro­duc­tion tar­gets, re­in­forc­ing HSE stan­dards, and build­ing a re­silient, sus­tain­able work­force.

Ear­li­er this month, Peren­co an­nounced it had fi­nalised the ac­qui­si­tion of the Greater An­gos­tu­ra off­shore oil and gas as­sets and fa­cil­i­ties from Wood­side En­er­gy, ef­fec­tive Ju­ly 11.

Com­bined with its ex­ist­ing op­er­a­tions in the TSP and CAFI fields (Cashima, Amher­s­tia, Flam­boy­ant, Im­mortelle), the ac­qui­si­tion po­si­tions Peren­co among the top three nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Its to­tal ca­pac­i­ty now ex­ceeds 500 mm­scfd of gas and 10,000 bar­rels of oil per day.