The Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is de­mand­ing a full probe in­to yes­ter­day’s ex­plo­sion at the Ni­Quan En­er­gy (Gas-to-Liq­uids) plant.

“Min­is­ters of En­er­gy and Labour Franklin Khan and Stephen Mc­Clashie must launch an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion through the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA) and must en­sure there’s a full sus­pen­sion of all ac­tiv­i­ties,” said Op­po­si­tion MP Rudy In­dars­ingh fol­low­ing the ear­ly morn­ing ex­plo­sion.

Plant sources said it is be­lieved the ex­plo­sion in­volved a strip­per col­umn with­in the hy­dro­c­rack­ing “skid” unit of Ni­Quan’s plant on the for­mer Petrotrin re­fin­ery’s Pointe- a-Pierre com­pound. The pur­pose of the Hy­dro­c­rack­er Unit is to con­vert wax pro­duced in the fa­cil­i­ty to a high-qual­i­ty diesel prod­uct.

Work­ers, who pre­ferred not to be named, said night shift crews were leav­ing when the ex­plo­sion oc­curred.

They said spe­cial op­er­a­tors were sub­se­quent­ly sent in to shut down the plant to deal with wax in the pipeline that may have con­tributed to the blast. The sit­u­a­tion caused mas­sive traf­fic jams be­tween Mara­bel­la and Point-a- Pierre.

In­dars­ingh added, “This plant was the in­fa­mous World GTL plant built un­der the late Mal­colm Jones. The pub­lic is owed in­for­ma­tion on who are the pri­ma­ry movers and shak­ers be­hind this plant. Min­is­ter Khan through his Min­istry as reg­u­la­tor of this en­er­gy as­set must re­veal whether there was rigid col­lab­o­ra­tion and sign off with Labour through OS­HA be­fore its for­mal open­ing.”

“I shud­der to think what would have hap­pened if the re­fin­ery was op­er­at­ing. Did the reg­u­la­to­ry and over­sight au­thor­i­ties and agen­cies turn a blind eye to the OS­HA risks - which be­came ob­vi­ous a few days ago when er­rat­ic flares em­anat­ed from the fa­cil­i­ty- be­cause per­sons be­hind this plant are high­ly con­nect­ed po­lit­i­cal­ly to peo­ple in Gov­ern­ment?” In­dars­ingh said.

Mean­while, Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee added, “I’m ex­treme­ly grate­ful none of my con­stituents in the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties of Mara­bel­la and en­vi­rons ex­pe­ri­enced in­juries or prop­er­ty dam­age. When Petrotrin was in op­er­a­tion, peo­ple were guar­an­teed as­sis­tance with health­care in the event of a cri­sis. To­day we’re un­sure of any as­sis­tance from Ni­Quan in the event of an emer­gency.”

Lee added, “There’s al­so need for In­de­pen­dent Safe­ty Spe­cial­ists to as­cer­tain the safe­ty of Ni­Quan’s op­er­a­tions in re­la­tion to oth­er plants on the Petrotrin com­pound as well as risks posed to the com­mu­ni­ty. Even though the re­fin­ery’s been moth­balled, Ni­Quan must im­me­di­ate­ly un­der­take and present the find­ings of a trans­par­ent re­view of the safe­ty of its op­er­a­tions on the Petrotrin com­pound.

“For weeks we’ve heard about sig­nif­i­cant is­sues at the plant with me­dia re­ports con­firm­ing it faced se­ri­ous pro­duc­tion is­sues. Ni­Quan is a clear ex­am­ple of Gov­ern­ment’s Big Talk /No re­sults pol­i­cy. On­ly on March 9 the Prime Min­is­ter her­ald­ed that it was ‘ a tri­umph, a re­sound­ing suc­cess.”

The MP added,” An­swers are need­ed on why Gov­ern­ment is so in­vest­ed in Ni­Quan. It’s damn­ing Gov­ern­ment has giv­en Ni­Quan this plant at a pep­per­corn rate de­spite mil­lions be­ing spent to build it, Gov­ern­ment has agreed to buy all their off­take and al­so of­fered them guar­an­teed sup­ply of gas. But Pro­man is be­ing forced to shut down plants due to short­age of gas.”

“Boom” shook res­i­dents

The ex­plo­sion’s “boom” shook, star­tled and scared res­i­dents down­wind, as far north as Cal­i­for­nia and be­yond San Fer­nan­do.

A Palmiste res­i­dent who was in the bath­room at 6.30 am told Guardian Me­dia, “I thought it was a trans­former ex­plod­ing!”

A Rush­worth Street res­i­dent said the same.

Of­fi­cials of Trop­i­cal Plaza - op­po­site the re­fin­ery -said the Plaza didn’t suf­fer bro­ken glass or sim­i­lar dam­age, on­ly ash blow­ing from the ex­plo­sion af­fect­ed one area. Of­fi­cials were evac­u­at­ed but were sub­se­quent­ly al­lowed to re­turn and do in­spec­tions.

“Pope” Amin of Amin’s Roti shop in Mara­bel­la told Guardian Me­dia, “It was a big, big noise which shook our build­ing like the large earth­quakes we’ve had in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We were the on­ly busi­ness place open when the ex­plo­sion hap­pened, luck­i­ly oth­ers were closed.”

Kelvin Har­nanan (one­time vice pres­i­dent of Petrotrin’s re­fin­ery) who lives near­by added, “It sound­ed like a very heavy steel door slam­ming shut.”

A Plai­sance Park res­i­dent said the chan­de­lier fell and broke.

Bat­too Av­enue, Mar­bel­la res­i­dents said glass­es broke.

“My body jerked with the im­pact,” added an­oth­er Mara­bel­la res­i­dent.

Call for res­i­dents to be com­pen­sat­ed

The Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers said, “It’s deeply trou­bling to wit­ness this most dis­as­trous oc­cur­rence in such a short time since the Ni­Quan plant’s com­mis­sion­ing. If dam­age is in­flict­ed on res­i­dents’ prop­er­ties, the onus is on NETL to com­pen­sate them. “We call for a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion by qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als in­to this. The plant should tem­porar­i­ly halt op­er­a­tions un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plet­ed and a fi­nal re­port is sub­mit­ted.”