Oil spill emergency plan for Caribbean Region urgently needed - TT Minister of Energy

Oil spill emergency plan for Caribbean Region urgently needed – TT Minister of Energy

Feb 06, 2020 News

By Kiana Wilburg reporting from Trinidad and Tobago

Given the fragility of the environment in the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago’s Energy Minister, Franklin Khan, is of the firm view that Guyana and other oil producing nations in the region need to collaborate on an oil spill emergency plan.
The Minister made these and other remarks at his country’s three-day Energy Conference which concluded yesterday at the Hyatt Hotel. There, the Energy Minister said that urgent attention needs to be given to the development of this plan.
Khan specifically stated, “There needs to be sensitivity to the potential adverse impacts of oil and gas exploration. To date, operators in the region have been responsible in their exploration activities and there have been no major adverse events.
“Notwithstanding, in relation to offshore exploration, risk assessment, disaster management planning, and disaster recovery, the region requires a common approach.”
The TT official said it is therefore important that the countries involved in offshore oil and gas exploration consider the development of an oil spill regional emergency plan.
Khan said that Trinidad has an oil spill agreement with Venezuela while noting that there have also been preliminary discussions between the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries (MEEI) and ExxonMobil which operates in several blocks offshore Guyana.
The Energy Minister said, “This matter requires the urgent attention of the Caribbean Governments and the energy companies operating in their marine environment. T&T has had experience in the development of protocols and in the management of oil spills, and is available, to lend its expertise to the other countries.”
For the last four years, Guyana has been working to put together an effective National Oil Spill Contingency Plan. Those efforts are being led by the Civil Defence Commission (CDC). Head of the CDC, Colonel Kester Craig, had said last year that the document would be ready by the end of 2019.
But to date, the CDC is yet to confirm if the plan has received Cabinet’s blessings as well as when it would be made public.
Furthermore, the oil spill emergency plan as recommended by Minister Franklin would be pertinent to Guyana since its future operations can pose a risk to the region. The details of this risk were outlined in an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) that was carried out on the Payara field of the ExxonMobil operated Stabroek Block.
The EIA states that an oil spill from the Payara field, the development of which is awaiting Government approval, could affect many of Guyana’s neighbours such as Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao; the southern Lesser Antilles; and the Greater Antilles.
The EIA in particular notes that an unmitigated oil spill from a loss-of-well-control during the December-May season would take a west-northwesterly route through the Gulf of Paria and across the southern edge of the Caribbean Sea.
Comparatively, strong easterly winds in the December−May season would expose the northern coast of South America and the southern Lesser Antilles to the bulk of shoreline oiling risk. It was further noted that an equivalent spill during the June–November season would be exposed to lower wind speeds, allowing the surface oil to be transported to the north of Trinidad and Tobago and swept into the Caribbean Sea.
The EIA states that the plume would track slightly more to the north, across the central Caribbean Sea and the central and southern portions of the Lesser Antilles, to the Greater Antilles.
Significantly, the EIA notes that due to its location at the southern end of the Lesser Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago is the only island that would have the potential to be affected by the trans-boundary effects of any unmitigated loss-of-well-control event, regardless of season.
It states that the probability of oiling at least a portion of the coast of Trinidad and Tobago and/or its coastal waters is approximately 90 to 100 percent for any of the unmitigated loss-of-well-control event scenarios.
With the exception of the Gulf of Venezuela, oil spill modeling indicates a five to 60 percent probability of surface oil reaching the Venezuelan coastal zone, depending on location and season.
Further, it was outlined in the report that Venezuela has numerous marine turtle nesting beaches, mangroves, important bird areas, coral reefs, and shallow coastal lagoons that would be at risk of oiling. As for Trinidad, it was noted that there are numerous fishing areas, which could be impacted by a large spill from a loss-of-well-control event.
Additionally, the EIA notes that the economies of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao are dependent on tourism to varying degrees but especially so in Bonaire, which is known internationally as a destination for recreational diving.
Considering this, the EIA states that an oil spill would have economic effects but the extent of this would depend to a large degree on the scale of the spill and how rapidly they would recover.