Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) president general Ancel Roget says that Petrotrin could have possibly exposed the country to the Ebola virus as no medical officer screened the crew aboard the Overseas Yellowstone crude oil tanker on Monday.
Despite Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan saying medical personnel gave the vessel a “clean bill of health,” at a press conference yesterday Roget claimed it was a port officer at Petrotrin’s Pointe-a-Pierre port who boarded the vessel for 20 minutes and relied on information given by the crew.
The Overseas Yellowstone, which bears the Republic of Marshall Islands’ flag, remained moored off Pointe-a-Pierre yesterday.
Port workers have refused to berth the vessel, which is delivering approximately 750,000 barrels of crude oil to Petrotrin, because it came from Gabon, near the west African countries which are plagued by the Ebola virus.
Although Gabon is not on T&T’s watch list for the virus, Roget said ships often bunkered at sea and that was where crews could contract the virus.
He said although Petrotrin claimed the vessel was safe, its assesment was based on an old procedure that did not take the virus into consideration.
He added: “The level of clearance that they would have given to the crew to berth that ship, for our employees to put themselves in harm’s way, is a health clearance certificate that has been in existence long before the issue of Ebola hit the attention of the international community.
“Therefore, it is on the sign-off of a port health officer, who is not a medical officer, who is not a medical doctor, and who would have boarded the vessel on 5.20 and departed on 6.40 minutes, and gave clearance without even checking out or examining the crew to determine that none of them exhibit any symptoms of Ebola.”
He added: “What if, for whatever reason, there is someone in one of those cabins that is quarantined, or with high fever, or exhibiting some symptoms? They will not tell us that, and our authority, having boarded the ship for some 20 minutes, did not check that.
“Therefore they have given the clearance, on the basis of some procedure, (that the ship is) free of this Ebola virus.
Roget said all the union was asking of Petrotrin was to put a heightened alert and protocols to ensure the workers’ and the country’s safety.
On Monday, Petrotrin president Khalid Hassanali said berthing the vessel was essential for Petrotrin’s operations.
Petrotrin responds
State-owned Petrotrin said yesterday workers’ continued refusal to offload the oil cargo aboard the MV Overseas Yellowstone had affected the company’s production.
In a release last night, the company said the delay in the process had forced the company to “reduce the throughput to the refinery from 110,000 barrels a day to 80,000 bpd with the attendant financial losses.
“Without this supply of crude, the company could be forced to shut down operations at the refinery, which can take as much as two weeks to restart, thereby jeopardising the supply of refined products to the local market and international customers and threatening the continue viability of the organisation.”
The company said the workers’ action was continuing although the union had met with Petrotrin’s chief medical officer on their Ebola concerns and subsequently agreed there was no issue preventing employees from berthing the vessel.
It said workers still refused to berth the vessel after the meeting and it took alternative measures to berth it on Monday.
However, it said despite agreeing to provide additional safety equipment, the employees then refused to carry out the port operations connected to offloading the vessel.
The company said while it appreciated the concerns of employees who must engage with vessels arriving from regional and international shores, the import of crude was critical to the continued operations of the refinery.
