Petrotrin flare leaves residents shaken

At 8 am, fire was seen coming from one of the company’s flare stacks.

Residents living along the Guaracara River some 100 yards away from the refinery’s border said they experienced intense levels of heat and felt the earth vibrate which left cracks on the walls of some of the houses.

Residents, unaware of the cause of the heat and shaking, feared the worst. Allister Cephus, a Battoo Avenue resident and representative of the Marabella NGO, criticised Petrotrin’s Health and Safety protocols, saying there was no alarm to warn residents of the flare and Petrotrin took too long to send officials to quell their fears.

“HSE needs to do something. It is 2017. We looking to go into first world status but watch the dilapidated state of the refinery,” Cephus said as he pointed to rusted tanks and pipes in the distance which he said only heightens the fears of the nearby residents.

“If that is the way they keeping the refinery, what about our lives? We need this present government to attend to the people. Dr Keith Rowley, we want you to come and attend to the people please because this thing is getting out of hand.” In a release, Petrotrin described the incident as an “upset condition at the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery accompanied by higher than normal flaring.” Flare stacks are used to burn off unusable gases released by during unplanned over-pressuring of plant equipment.

Petrotrin’s communications department explained to Newsday that th term “upset condition” meant there was an unusually high amount of excess gas to be burned off, thus resulting in the fear-inducing flaring yesterday morning.

Petrotrin said the situation was normalised and company officials were dispatched to the Marabella community in its wake. Asked whether there was the possibility of the flare occurring again and if there was the possibility of any adverse effects for nearby communities, Petrotrin said there were inherent risks associated due to the nature of its business.

But Cephus said the flare was just the latest in a series of woes residents are growing tired of enduring, including oil spills and gas emissions which make some of them sick. He called on the relevant authorities to assist residents in being relocated.