KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd has an­nounced a tem­po­rary pause in its search ef­forts for off­shore work­er Pe­te Phillip, who dis­ap­peared at sea af­ter a par­tial col­lapse of Rig 110 last week. The com­pa­ny stat­ed that the break is nec­es­sary to en­sure the safe­ty of the site be­fore re­sum­ing re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions.

Eight days have passed since the 47-year-old La Ro­main fa­ther of four went miss­ing in the Her­itage Off­shore East Field. In an up­date yes­ter­day, Well Ser­vices ex­plained that the pause in search ef­forts would al­low for ad­di­tion­al safe­ty mea­sures to be im­ple­ment­ed in the des­ig­nat­ed area of in­ter­est.

“This break is nec­es­sary to as­sess and se­cure the site be­fore re­sum­ing the next phase of the op­er­a­tion. Lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, along with search and re­cov­ery teams, have been work­ing dili­gent­ly to lo­cate Pe­te. Dur­ing this tem­po­rary pause, ex­perts will as­sess the area and take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to en­sure the safe­ty of all per­son­nel in­volved in the on­go­ing search and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions,” the com­pa­ny stat­ed.

The South Oropouche-based com­pa­ny reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to the search and re­cov­ery ef­forts with the full sup­port of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd man­ag­ing di­rec­tor An­tho­ny Brash has been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Phillip’s fam­i­ly and oth­er stake­hold­ers, as­sur­ing them of the com­pa­ny’s ded­i­ca­tion to their well-be­ing and to com­plet­ing the re­cov­ery process. Brash em­pha­sised that the tem­po­rary pause is cru­cial to en­sur­ing the safe­ty of all in­volved. 

“The search and re­cov­ery teams will con­tin­ue to work close­ly with rel­e­vant safe­ty and op­er­a­tional ex­perts to en­sure the site is se­cure be­fore re­sum­ing ac­tiv­i­ties,” he said.

The in­ci­dent

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3.09 am on De­cem­ber 22, the der­rick of Rig 110, which was en­gaged in drilling ac­tiv­i­ties at the time, par­tial­ly col­lapsed with 75 per­son­nel on­board. One per­son sus­tained in­juries and was in sta­ble con­di­tion and sent for med­ical care.

Phillip, how­ev­er, re­mains miss­ing. Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, the com­pa­ny evac­u­at­ed all per­son­nel from the rig and en­list­ed the ex­per­tise of T&T Sal­vage for emer­gency re­sponse ef­forts. Hunters Search and Res­cue al­so searched the south­west­ern coast­line for any signs that Phillip may have washed ashore.

As the op­er­a­tion tran­si­tions in­to its next phase, Well Ser­vices con­tin­ues to bal­ance its com­mit­ment to re­cov­ery with the pri­ori­ti­sa­tion of safe­ty and care for those af­fect­ed by the tragedy.