Petrotrin probes oil spill ‘sabotage’
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has confirmed that an investigation has been launched into possible sabotage of operations at State-owned oil company Petrotrin.
Persad-Bissessar was responding to reports of another oil spill—this time at the company’s inland oil exploration operations at Rancho Quemado yesterday.
It was the fifth oil spill in South Trinidad since Tuesday.
She was speaking to reporters during a toy drive in Penal.
“Minister (of Energy) Kevin Ramnarine spoke with me this morning. He advised that Petrotrin is investigating a possible sabotage. At the moment it would not be appropriate to blame anyone but the nature of it seems to indicate that there may be some sabotage and therefore that needs to be investigated before we can say anything further,” she said.
Persad-Bissessar said the government was also dealing with the issue of scrap iron and illegal bunkering.
Her statement came moments after Petrotrin president Khalid Hassanali announced that one of the company’s lease operators, Trinity Oil, discovered several valves opened overnight, allowing oil to flow out of the tanks on land.
“(Friday) night in our land operations in Rancho Quemado, one of our lease operators, Trinity Oil, discovered a number of valves opened overnight allowing oil to flow out of the tanks. The oil spilled out into the land. They do morning checks of wells. And this morning check, to their horror, there was oil all over the place and upon further investigation it was discovered that a number of the valves attached to the tanks were opened,” he said…READ MORE