Drilling company not paying rent

Mahabir said the drilling company had decided to use the Gulf of Paria to cold stack their rigs due to several factors including the area’s stability and its proximity to a number of oil producing regions.

“When these massive expensive drilling rigs are not in use the owners usually they park them up in a place where there are no hurricanes big waves tsunamis and so they can park quietly and they can get rid of most of their staff ” Mahabir said.

“They have decided the Gulf of Paria is the ideal place for two reasons - one it doesn’t have the danger of hurricane and two it is near to a lot of oil work - Trinidad Guyana Suriname and Venezuela ” he continued adding that the parking arrangement had been made with the People’s Partnership government and renegotiated with the current government.

“That arrangement has already been made negotiations have been completed several months now but government has not received or not asked for or have not gotten any of the foreign exchange from rent ” he said. Mahabir said there were two issues at stake - transparency in government and the loss of a significant amount of Forex which he said could be in the range of almost US$1 million.

“There is a shortage of foreign exchange and every time we get an opportunity to get foreign exchange we should seize it jump on it and we are a little surprised that this has not happened ” he said.

Meanwhile former Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine confirmed that the cold stacking had been done through the Ministry of Trade and Ministry of Transport under the previous administration.

“There are about nine drill ships out in the Gulf of Paria and I am told that more are coming to be parked in the Gulf of Paria we’ll be having more and more of this type of business ” Ramnarine said adding “ they are not here to drill they are just here to park.” In a recent article in an international business news magazine the ships were described as “hightech deep-water drill ships” which had been parked 12 miles off the coast of Trinidad & Tobago for several months. Meanwhile Mahabir said the forex shortage was also affecting those families who were unable to travel abroad to visit their children or siblings