Frankie disgusted with oil spill response

“Companies are seeing what they see, seeing how it affected fishermen, seeing how it killed fish, seeing oil in the mangroves and crabs laced with petroleum, and they say they are not sure where it coming from,” he said.

Delivering the keynote address at the American Chamber of Commerce of TT’s HSSE 20th Anniversary Conference at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of- Spain, Khan said it was largely the average man, in this case fishermen and their families, who felt the negative effects of the failure of aging and neglected infrastructure.

Khan told those gathered that oil pollution to inland and marine areas had sharply increased from a low of 843 barrels in 2011 to 18,960 barrels in 2014.

The Energy Minister said there could only be a limited number of sources of this pollution and that “hiding behind the goalpost” whenever an incident occurred was no longer acceptable.

“We have to take responsibility because it affects the lives of the common man. It is something we cannot tolerate because the fishermen are affected and their families are affected.

They could not buy books for their children because no one was buying fish in Otaheite,” said the minister, referring to the spill in that community.

He also lamented that, to this day, fishermen have not been paid their claims. However, Khan said the ministry was taking steps to combat the problem, ensuring that energy companies complied with the revised National Oil Spill Contingency Plan, which mandates that equipment and personnel are on hand to deal with land and marine oil spills. The minister also said the ministry had been conducting audits of operators to ensure they can meet their obligations in the event of a spill.

Speaking with reporters after his presentation, Khan revealed that he was in fact referring to Petrotrin.

“The specific leaks in the Gulf of Paria obviously pointed to Petrotrin and I think Petrotrin has been rather slow in their response to the various communities that have been affected and I will tell them so,” he said. He also compared, unfavourably, this country’s service station industry to the one in Barbados, saying TT had a right to be doing better in this arena, given its long presence in the energy sector.

Addressing increased margins for service stations, the Energy Minister said both he and the Minister of Finance were considering the issue. In recent weeks, service stations have been complaining about fixed margins, saying their profits are reduced as fuel prices rise.

“They have articulated their case on retail margins. I think there may be some substance to what they are saying,” said Khan.

However, the minister could not say whether this issue would be settled before further price increases at the pump. He indicated though that he planned to meet with the Finance Minister soon and they would objectively review the data.