Three injured in fire at Perenco platform offshore T&T

Three oil workers have been injured as a result of a fire at Perenco Trinidad and Tobago’s (TT) offshore AD platform. TT’s Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries is actively engaging the company, according to reports.

According to the Trinidad Guardian, the fire occurred on Tuesday around 3.50 pm when mechanics were performing maintenance on a gas compressor. This information reportedly came from Hei­di Diquez, the Ex­ter­nal Re­la­tions and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er of Peren­co.

“The fire was quick­ly extinguished, the emer­gency re­sponse pro­ce­dures ac­ti­vat­ed and the plat­forms were shut in. There was no dis­charge of hy­dro­car­bons to the en­vi­ron­ment as a re­sult of the in­ci­dent,” Diquez is quoted by the Guardian as saying.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, three con­tract em­ploy­ees were in­jured and im­me­di­ate­ly re­ceived med­ical treat­ment on-site. Two of the three in­jured per­sons re­quired fur­ther med­ical treat­ment and were prompt­ly air­lift­ed to shore. Con­se­quent­ly, one per­son was dis­charged af­ter med­ical checks and the oth­er re­mains in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the med­ical fa­cil­i­ty,” she reportedly stat­ed.

The report said that all rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties and agen­cies were du­ly in­formed and are be­ing kept up­dat­ed and that a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties has been ini­ti­at­ed.

As a re­sult of the in­ci­dent, of­fi­cials from the En­er­gy Min­istry reportedly met with Peren­co on Wednesday. The company is obligated to provide a report to the ministry, the Guardian reported.

Peren­co is a 20 percent stakeholder and op­er­a­tor of the con­sor­tium that man­ages the TSP fields which are lo­cat­ed 20 km to 45 km from the South­east Coast of Trinidad in deep wa­ter at 55 me­ters.

Its partners are Trinidad and To­ba­go Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion Petrotrin, and Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, the NGC, the Guardian said.