Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Rel­a­tives of rig work­er Pe­te Phillip yes­ter­day made a tear­ful plea to the com­pa­ny to ex­pe­dite ef­forts to re­trieve his body.

“They tak­ing too long. They need to hur­ry up and do some­thing about it. His ba­by might born ei­ther to­day or to­mor­row be­cause she (Phillip’s wife) says she is get­ting pain. I don’t know what will hap­pen,” Phillip’s moth­er Pa­tri­cia said.

Phillip’s moth­er, broth­er Elvis Phillip and sis­ter Paula Bax­am joined Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) rep­re­sen­ta­tives for a press con­fer­ence at the en­trance to Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd at Ota­heite, South Oropouche.

On De­cem­ber 22, Phillip was among 75 per­son­nel work­ing on Rig 110 in the Her­itage Off­shore Field when it col­lapsed. Rel­a­tives said the com­pa­ny told them sal­vage and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions might re­sume in ear­ly March as they were await­ing the ar­rival of spe­cialised equip­ment.

OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get dis­missed the com­pa­ny’s ex­pla­na­tion as ridicu­lous. He said if it been equip­ment for a drilling op­er­a­tion it would have been pro­cured with­in 48 hours.

“We do not ac­cept that equip­ment can­not be ac­cessed al­most im­me­di­ate­ly,” said Ro­get.

Phillip’s broth­er Elvis, who agreed with Ro­get, added, “I know how fast equip­ment can reach here. If they have to bring a jum­bo plane to get some­thing in the coun­try to do their op­er­a­tion they will do that at what­ev­er cost but this re­cov­er­ing my broth­er not mak­ing mon­ey for them so they have a care in the world.”

He took is­sue with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who on Mon­day said, “These in­ci­dents oc­cur in hy­dro­car­bon economies world­wide. It is al­ways un­for­tu­nate, and every loss of life is re­gret­table,” the min­is­ter said.

Phillip said Young’s com­ments were dis­taste­ful and alarm­ing as the goal should al­ways be ze­ro in­ci­dents.

“Them could eat up and drink up all they want while oth­er peo­ple griev­ing. Look at the length of time. It al­ready hap­pened, just give we back our broth­er. There is so much more that they can do,” he said.

He called for prop­er safe­ty mech­a­nisms in the en­er­gy sec­tor so that his broth­er’s death would not be in vain.

Ro­get called on Well Ser­vices, the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty, and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd, to give an up­date on their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“The ques­tion of who will do what or take ac­tion re­gard­less of what ac­tion tak­en by any mem­ber of the fam­i­ly, the Min­istry of En­er­gy and OSH Au­thor­i­ty ought to be in­de­pen­dent to take le­gal ac­tion against the com­pa­ny for breach­es and to speed up those in­ves­ti­ga­tion but most im­por­tant­ly get what­ev­er equip­ment nec­es­sary to re­trieve the re­mains of the work­er,” said Ro­get.

In a press state­ment, Well Ser­vices said that giv­en the high-risk na­ture of the sal­vage and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tion, it is crit­i­cal to first sta­bilise Rig 110 to en­sure the safe­ty of all per­son­nel in­volved and to cre­ate a se­cure foun­da­tion for the com­plex op­er­a­tions.

The com­pa­ny said the sta­bil­i­sa­tion process in­volved a thor­ough as­sess­ment of the rig and de­ploy­ment of spe­cialised equip­ment to safe­ly se­cure the struc­ture to pre­vent any fur­ther risks or dam­age.

“On­ly when the rig is prop­er­ly sta­bilised will the re­cov­ery ef­forts pro­ceed in full, with the ul­ti­mate goal of en­sur­ing the safe­ty of all in­volved and achiev­ing the suc­cess­ful re­cov­ery of the body of Pe­te Phillip.”

The com­pa­ny said it part­nered with an in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­ny to se­cure the equip­ment af­ter seek­ing ex­pert ad­vice that de­ter­mined equip­ment avail­able lo­cal­ly did not meet the nec­es­sary stan­dards for the op­er­a­tion.