Latest update March 29th, 2025 5:38 AM
Minimal to no risk of oil spill from vessel – CDC
The FSO Nabarima that was reported to be sinking
Kaieteur News – There is a minimal to no risk of an oil spill from the Nabarima Floating Storing and Offloading (FSO) vessel, which was reported to be listing off of the Venezuelan coast since last week, according to Guyana’s Civil Defence Commission (CDC).
The CDC indicated to the press that based on assessments conducted by Trinidad and Tobago government, the efforts to relieve the FSO Nabarima of its 1.3M barrels of oil cargo, as well as the ongoing remedial works being conducted, there is minimal risk of an oil spill in the Gulf of Paria—a stretch of water between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago
T&T Energy Minister, Franklin Khan commented on Wednesday that, “The FSO Nabarima is upright and stable with no visible tilt and there is no imminent risk of tilting or sinking.”
The Energy Minister on to say that the three-man team from T&T which assessed the situation reported that major maintenance was ongoing on the vessel with pumps and electrical motors being repaired and replaced as needed. The team’s report states the maintenance programme as being “quite satisfactory”, the minister reported.
Amid environmental concerns, international news agency Reuters had reported that the Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) had begun offloading crude from the Nabarima floating oil facility via ship-to-ship (STS) transfer amid environmental concerns. This started on Tuesday with the arrival of PDVSA’s ship, Icaro – a much smaller vessel than Nabarima.
The T&T team recommended the transfer of oil from the vessel be done by a much larger vessel which will reduce the offload time and logistics of the transfer as “this will reduce the possibility of an environmental incident occurring in the Gulf of Paria,” Khan said.
Notably, this potential spill threatens not only the Gulf, but the entire Caribbean Sea as it can impact the ecological systems of Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago almost immediately, with the impact affecting other countries within the hemisphere.
Even more concerning, an oil spill from Nabarima would be five times larger than that of the Exxon Valdez that occurred in Alaska’s Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. It was the worst oil spill in U.S. history, until the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
The Exxon Valdez spilled 260,000 barrels (11M gallons) of oil into the Sound, with an oil slick that covered 1,300 miles of coastline and killed hundreds of thousands of seabirds, otters, seals and whales. Nearly 30 years later, pockets of crude oil remain in some locations.
The CDC says that it will nonetheless continue to liaise with its local, regional and international counterparts to ensure the situation is adequately monitored and that no threats are posed to Guyana.
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