Oil Nation | Episode 5

Summary

Pipeline Podcast - Episode 5: Oil Nation

Host: Isabelle Stanley
Release Date: June 12, 2025

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Incident Overview

In February 2022, a harrowing tragedy unfolded deep beneath the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago. Four professional divers working for LMCs contracted by Paria were sucked hundreds of feet into an oil pipe, leading to their deaths. This episode of Pipeline delves into the events of that day, unraveling the layers of negligence, systemic failures, and lingering questions surrounding the incident.

Christopher Boodram, a survivor of a prior near-accident, recounts the fateful day:

"As soon as I saw that, I just saw the guys fire and just dove off the jetty as soon as far down to the bottom as I could and stay as long as I could because I was expecting an explosion."
[00:54 - 01:38]

Background Stories: A Pattern of Negligence

Before the tragic event, an incident in December 2021 almost claimed the same divers' lives. Christopher describes a near-miss where an accidental electrical shock and ensuing fire left them trembling:

"We shaken, we frightened, right? This nearly kill us. We actually trembling from this."
[02:48 - 03:01]

Despite the severity, Paria officials dismissed the incident without proper investigation:

"We could have died and nobody, nothing, nobody losing the job, nothing."
[03:18 - 04:09]

This recurring negligence hinted that the February tragedy was not an isolated event but part of a broader pattern of systemic failures within the oil industry in Trinidad and Tobago.

Inquiry Findings and Government Response

The national inquiry, led by Jerome Lynch, concluded that Paria's incompetence directly led to the divers' deaths. Lynch recommended corporate manslaughter charges against Paria. However, the response was lackluster:

"In September 2024... Paria and LMCs were charged with breaching the Occupational Health and Safety act, minor charges to which they have all pleaded not guilty. But to date there has been no sign of the corporate manslaughter charge against Paria."
[05:30 - 06:45]

Jerome Lynch expressed confidence in the inquiry's thoroughness, but frustration lingered among the victims' families and the public:

"I thought to my mind, we were as thorough as it was possible to be... you don't have to find every single piece and it doesn't have to go into place in order to come up with the answer."
[09:22 - 09:44]

Public Distrust and Emerging Theories

Public dissatisfaction grew as the inquiry's recommendations remained largely unimplemented. Christopher Boodram and Anand Ramlogan, Christopher's lawyer and former Attorney General, voiced their frustrations:

"The inquiry was a waste of time also."
[07:05 - 07:08]

Amidst calls for accountability, various theories emerged to explain the tragedy beyond mere negligence:

1. Business Continuity Over Rescue Efforts:

   • Internal communications revealed Paria's focus on resuming operations rather than prioritizing the divers' rescue:

     "In the midst of a crisis, while they struggled to coordinate even the most basic rescue efforts, they were focused on preparing a preemptive press release announcing the men's deaths and planning the resumption of their business operations."
     [12:16 - 16:41]

2. Venezuelan Oil Sanctions Busting:

   • Speculation arose linking the tragedy to clandestine oil shipments from Venezuela. However, investigations found no evidence to support this theory:

     "We drew a blank. There was no evidence that we could find."
     [22:17 - 23:30]

3. Political Interference:

   • Ansel Roger, president of the oil workers' trade union, suggested that political maneuvering and cronyism led to deteriorating safety standards:

     "They played politics instead of ensuring that they maximize the return they can get from these resources for the benefit of the people. And that's where the standards begin to fall."
     [28:30 - 30:00]

4. Cost-Benefit Calculations on Human Life:

   • Anand Ramlogan accused Paria of potentially valuing financial savings over divers' lives:

     "I believe the initial belief was that all had perished and that if they had not perished that they would soon perish... it's cheaper to allow someone to die than it is to rescue them broken and maimed."
     [17:55 - 18:34]

Ongoing Tragedies and Industry Malaise

The February 2022 incident was not isolated. The episode highlights similar accidents, such as the December 2024 collapse of a well rig operated by Well Services Petroleum Limited, which resulted in another fatality:

"An accident that took place on 22 December last year... 75 workers could have lost their lives."
[35:09 - 35:59]

Kazim Ali emphasizes the industry's critical importance yet criticizes its decline:

"The oil industry is of critical importance to Trinidad and Tobago because the country depends on the energy sector for its income, its revenue and therefore from inception to now we have still run a one track economy."
[28:30 - 28:48]

Union Decline and Safety Standards

The shutdown of Petrotrin in 2018 led to the fragmentation of the oil sector into smaller, often unregulated entities like Paria. Ansel Roger argues this dismantling weakened union influence and eroded safety standards:

"With no daily standards in the Paria situation there's absolutely no standards."
[31:55 - 32:11]

Moreover, top positions within the new companies were filled by politically connected but unqualified individuals, exacerbating operational inefficiencies and safety lapses:

"He [Newman George] never set foot, he never work, he don't know what... if oil is dripping from his crankcase of his vehicle, he cannot recognize that."
[32:39 - 33:22]

Call for Accountability and Change

As the oil industry continues to suffer from recurrent accidents, stakeholders demand systemic reforms. Ansel Roger and Kazim Ali advocate for restoring union power and enforcing stringent safety standards to prevent future tragedies:

"We make bold to say that... what they did was unqualified... that spells chaos not only for workers but for oil production."
[32:39 - 33:22]

Looking Ahead: Seeking Closure and Justice

Despite the inquiries and public outcry, the affected families and communities remain without closure. Kazim Ali recounts the personal toll of another unresolved accident:

"Nobody knows because why they don't have answers. We have no closure for our brother... We need that closure and we need it sooner than later."
[36:28 - 37:30]

The episode concludes with the anticipation of further investigations and impending political changes, as Trinidad and Tobago approaches national elections amid growing demands for transparency and accountability.

"We need that closure and we need it sooner than later. Next time on Pipeline... we are hoping to ask the Prime Minister a few questions and we end up wrapped up in a national election."
[40:10 - 40:26]

Conclusion

Episode 5 of Pipeline, titled "Oil Nation", provides a comprehensive exploration of the catastrophic safety failures within Trinidad and Tobago's oil industry. Through survivor testimonies, expert analyses, and investigative journalism, the podcast underscores the urgent need for structural reforms to safeguard lives and ensure accountability. The lingering questions and unresolved grief of the families highlight the profound human cost of industrial negligence.

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For more information or to support the podcast, contact [e-mail] or visit Support Christopher Boodram.

Transcript

[Anand Ramlogan]

Seriously popular.

[Christopher Boodram]

So at the time we were doing maintenance on the line. Plug it, Apache on it, you know, monitor it.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Christopher Boodram is doing routine maintenance at one of the berths in San Fernando. Rishi Nagasar is on the team too. They're working for LMCs contracted by Paria.

[Christopher Boodram]

One of my co workers opened the flange and while opening it, he got shocked and he come around and said, chris, we get in shock. And I was like, what? I started laughing. I said, how you could get shocked off of that. I opened the line and I got shocked. So we came to the Paria official and spoke with him.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Christopher gets an electric shock and tells the Pariah official overseeing the job to check for an issue.

[Christopher Boodram]

They tested it and they said it again, no current vanilla. So we went open it. I hear someone tick, tick, tick, tick, just like, boy, where's that buddy? I see the spark going across and as soon as I go to try to lock back off the line, a fire ignited.

[Isabelle Stanley]

As Christopher opens a valve on the pipe, he sees a spark and then flames.

[Christopher Boodram]

As soon as I saw that, I just saw the guys fire and just dove off the jetty as soon as far down to the bottom as I could and stay as long as I could because I was expecting an explosion. So after I came up, I came up far off where I went into. I was just seeing like fire just shooting out all while swimming across. Our boat came and picked us up. He was like, I tell them this gonna happen. I sure this was going to happen. And they tell me do it, do it, do it right. He did it.

[Isabelle Stanley]

At first. When Christopher told me this story earlier this year, I thought he was talking about the accident at the center of this podcast. But then I realized this was something else entirely. This Another incident in December 2021, three months before the tragedy.

[Christopher Boodram]

We shaken, we frightened, right? This nearly kill us. We actually trembling from this.

[Isabelle Stanley]

It was a near mess. I've seen video of the aftermath. A column of black smoke about 100ft long pours from the berth where the fire was. Christopher and his team could easily have been killed.

[Christopher Boodram]

Thank God that we were able to walk away from that. When we reach back on shore now, Pariah officials come tell me that go home, take the day, rest yourself, you know, we come back tomorrow, we'll interview each and every one of you all separately. And the next day we came to work. Was work as usual. I said, what's going on here? Why you all not, you know, investigating what's going on here? What went on? Nobody was Interviewed. This whole thing was swept under the carpet, right? We could have died. We could have died and nobody, nothing, nobody losing the job, nothing.

[Isabelle Stanley]

This second story, mentioned almost in passing by Christopher, showed us something important. The accident in this podcast, the one that claimed the lives of four men and irrevocably altered that of another. It wasn't a one off.

[Jerome Lynch]

Foreign.

[Isabelle Stanley]

I'm Isabelle Stanley and from the Daily Mail. You're listening to Pipeline, episode five, Oil Nation.

[Prakash Ramadar]

I think if anybody reads the report, you get a sense of what we felt as commissioners, the sense of futility and waste of life that need not have happened.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The chair of the inquiry, Jerome lynch, finished his report and laid it before the government in December 2023.

[Prakash Ramadar]

And if we have, as we do as humankind, to want to blame somebody, then we have to look to see who is responsible. And there are courts that are going to consider that in due course, whether it's in a civil court or in.

[Isabelle Stanley]

A criminal court, as we heard last episode, he concluded the state owned oil company Paria effectively prevented the four divers trapped inside the oil pipe from being rescued. And as a result, he recommended that Paria be charged with corporate manslaughter. But despite that bombshell, very little has actually happened since. The inquiry was just a fact finding body. It could only make recommendations, which it's then up to the government to either follow or not. In September 2024, as recommended by the report, Paria and LMCs were charged with breaching the Occupational Health and Safety act, minor charges to which they have all pleaded not guilty. But to date there has been no sign of the corporate manslaughter charge against Paria, only vague statements from police that an investigation is ongoing. It's obviously now been three years. What do you think of where we are now?

[Prakash Ramadar]

Even though it's three years on, that's not unusual in Trinidad and Tobago. The process is slow. That's their system. But it does seem to me not proper for me to make a judgment call about it.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Jerome isn't concerned by the lack of immediate action. But not everyone is so patient.

[Christopher Boodram]

The inquiry was a waste of time also.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That's Christopher.

[Christopher Boodram]

Millions of dollars was spent on an inquiry, right? But it was clear to see that the government just used that as a papy show to tell the nation that we're doing something because the inquiry findings, none of that was implemented.

[Anand Ramlogan]

That commission inquiry was designed to be a political plaster on a social wound that was festering and they couldn't amputate.

[Isabelle Stanley]

And that's Anandramlogin. Christopher's lawyer and a former Attorney General of Trinidad.

[Anand Ramlogan]

The heat was so intense on the government, the public outrage and consternation was. It was boiling. It had reached tipping point. So what did they do? They pulled that political rabbit out of that. Okay, we are going to appoint a commission of inquiry. If you appoint a commission of inquiry, it appears as though you've done something and the heat will have to subside because they've done something to ascertain what the truth is. You can't criticize him anymore. So there we had it. Commission of inquiry to do what? To find out what Christopher Boodram had already made public and said he was a survivor.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Christopher and Anand are frustrated by the inquiry's lack of impact. But it's not just that driving their anger. They, along with many others in Trinidad, feel there are questions it didn't answer.

[Prakash Ramadar]

The reason why it happened is because people didn't act. They didn't do their job. That's why it happened.

[Isabelle Stanley]

As we know, Jerome concluded that the four divers weren't rescued because of a series of mistakes, incompetence and inaction by Paria.

[Prakash Ramadar]

And that starts with not having a proper scheme in place when these men were sucked into the pipe, that there weren't measures to prevent them from being sucked into the pipe. And then it goes on to, well, there wasn't any proper measure being taken to rescue these men from the pipe. That's why it happened. That's why they're dead, because people didn't do the jobs that they were employed to do.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Did you feel by the end of the process that you had found out everything you wanted to?

[Prakash Ramadar]

I'm not sure you can ever do that, can you? We found out enough. We found out enough. It's difficult sometimes to be sure. I thought to my mind, we were as thorough as it was possible to be. We took great care in ensuring that we had the widest possible information.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Was there anything else you would have really liked to know?

[Prakash Ramadar]

I'm not sure that there was. I thought to my mind, we were as thorough as it was possible to be. I don't think you need to find everything you know. If you have a jigsaw puzzle, you can have several pieces missing and still know what the picture is. You don't have to find every single piece and it doesn't have to go into place in order to come up with the answer. And so I think we came up with enough of the picture to know what the answer was.

[Isabelle Stanley]

But to this day, the families and swathes of the Public aren't satisfied, rightly or wrongly, they wonder if there is something more, another reason to explain why their loved ones were left to die. Something other than pure negligence or incompetence. Everyone has come up with their own ideas, their own missing puzzle pieces, from international conspiracies to compensation plots to fill those gaps. And when we arrived in Trinidad in February 2025, it felt like we were hearing a new theory every day. We decided to see which of them, if any, we could stand up. Bella and I are at LMCS's office in San Fernando.

[Kazim Ali]

It's kind of all over the place. I don't know if their pages.

[Christopher Boodram]

That's how they had them post.

[Isabelle Stanley]

We're here to see Kazim Ali Senior, the owner of LMCS and the father of one of the divers, Kaz Jr. And his wife Catherine.

[Kazim Ali]

They had a bigger hand than this, observing.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Kaz and Catherine saved and sorted hundreds of pages of evidence from the inquiry to go through themselves. A lot of it is no longer available online, so we need the hard copies. Catherine, did you prepare all of this? You've sort of been made to play detective almost.

[Kazim Ali]

Oh, yes, yes.

[Isabelle Stanley]

You had to do your own work.

[Jerome Lynch]

And it would be very valuable to know what exactly happened and why and.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Who did what and what's been covered.

[Christopher Boodram]

Up and to get the rest of that truth out.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The first theory we heard when we arrived in Trinidad is that after the men were sucked into the pipe, Harrier was more focused on getting business back up and running than on rescuing the divers still trapped inside.

[Kazim Ali]

262 walk in drive for press release. Moving from rescue to recovery. So that's only 26. That's a Saturday.

[Isabelle Stanley]

We're looking at a transcript of a WhatsApp chat between top officials from Paria and its sister company, Heritage Petroleum. It's from the hours and days after the tragedy, and it seems to be a sort of crisis management group. These messages were submitted to the inquiry, but they didn't come up in any detail in the final report. So that's what shows they drafted.

[Kazim Ali]

And condolences.

[Isabelle Stanley]

One's bodies are recovered in one of the posts from just 12 hours after the men were sucked into the pipes. Sent while LMCS and volunteer divers were still waiting on the berth, desperate to attempt a rescue. A member of the group shared that they had drafted two press releases. The first was to announce the end of the rescue operation. The second was to offer condolences once the men's bodies were recovered.

[Kazim Ali]

Okay, so this is the one here. Check the Sex of business, quantity. And that's where their concern was.

[Isabelle Stanley]

In another message assigning jobs for the next morning, the same person wrote the instruction, check Berth 6 for business continuity. Berth 6 is the site of the accident. And on Saturday morning, when the group wanted to send someone to check it for business purposes, the divers were still there, trapped inside the pipe. It wasn't only top officials who were concerned about business continuity. Those on the ground, the ones actively leading the rescue efforts, were also thinking about it. When we read Colin Piper's witness statement for the inquiry, we found it was on his mind too. Piper, who was the head of Paria's emergency response team, described how at midday on Saturday he held a meeting with two fellow Paria officials to figure out how to resume shipping in the surrounding waters. At that time, no one had even spoken with the divers families. They were waiting, desperate for information, in Paria's car park with no food or water. Piper then writes how a few hours later, at 4pm on Saturday, he and Paria's general manager, Mushtaq Mohammed, met with Heritage officials and decided to stop rescue efforts. According to the families, no one shared that information with them until Sunday evening. We mull the theory over as we leave LMCs. It's not unusual for a company to prepare their crisis statements in advance or to consider the impacts of a disaster on their business. But the speed at which Paria and its sister company did so is striking. It's remarkable that in the midst of a crisis, while they struggled to coordinate even the most basic rescue efforts, they were focused on preparing a pre emptive press release announcing the men's deaths and planning the resumption of their business operations. It's left some to wonder if Paria was so ineffectual throughout the rescue because their minds were elsewhere, focused on business rather than saving those men's lives. Do you think if you think about sort of the higher levels of Paria and tphl, not like Colin Piper, the level above that, sort of the chair, the board. Do you think in their minds the reason they were so slow and hesitant to take action was because they just wanted to get on with business?

[Prakash Ramadar]

I think it's very difficult to make that conclusion. There will be those who clearly will take the view that these men were dead. How do we handle what is going to be a difficult public opprobrium attached to us? How are we going to deal with that and get back to work as quickly as possible? They're bound to have been those who were considering that. How much that played a part in this? It's difficult to say. It's one of those puzzle pieces that perhaps we didn't quite get to and I don't think it matters very much in the overall scheme of things. They clearly needed to get back to business as quickly as they can. There is a degree of inhumanity about the speed with which that might have been done. Some might say, on the other hand, these are the realities, aren't they?

[Isabelle Stanley]

Some cast their aspersions, their theories as to why Paria failed to rescue the men even further than just business continuity.

[Anand Ramlogan]

Well, I can make an educated guess.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Prakash Ramadar is a lawyer. He represents two of the divers families, the Kirbans and the Henrys.

[Anand Ramlogan]

I believe the initial belief was that all had perished and that if they had not perished that they would soon perish. And as crass as it may sound, there's a belief in the legal fraternity that it may be cheaper to allow someone to die than it is to rescue them broken and maimed and to have to ensure their medical well being and upkeep for the rest of their lives. It's far more expensive and therefore I hope it is not that.

[Isabelle Stanley]

He suggests that a potential reason Paria did not rescue the men was a calculation that it would be cheaper if they came out of that pipe dead than alive with potentially life changing injuries or if they had to pay compensation to anyone injured in a rescue.

[Anand Ramlogan]

They had lawyers on call so that they could have written off an indemnity or so, and they said notwithstanding. So you know, all the risk, but I'm willing to take it. It was open to them to do that.

[Isabelle Stanley]

It's a serious allegation and one that we hear a few times with no evidence proffered. We did speak to someone, another lawyer, who claimed that they had informally offered to draw up an indemnity agreement for the parent company of Paria the day after the men were sucked into the pipe. That agreement would have allowed volunteers, or LMCs to attempt a rescue with no liability for Paria if something went wrong. The lawyer wouldn't tell us which member of the board they spoke to, but they did say their offer was rejected on the basis that they assumed the men were already dead. Another claim that came up when we were in Trinidad is that the failure to rescue the men didn't stop with Paria. It was political.

[Jerome Lynch]

Blame was leveled at all different quarters.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Ana Ramdass is a journalist in Trinidad. She was the first person to interview Christopher after he was pulled out of the pipe and she had A front row seat for the chaos that unfolded after.

[Jerome Lynch]

The people that run that company are appointed by the government. Paria is a state enterprise. It's funded by the government. So that's why blame was quickly thrown.

[Isabelle Stanley]

In that direction, because Paria is state owned. The crisis soon became a political lightning rod.

[Jerome Lynch]

Both political parties took a position on it. So there were some members who kept accusing the government of allowing or leaving these divers to die in the pipe and being careless and callous and not compassionate.

[Isabelle Stanley]

In particular, fingers were pointed at Stuart Young, who was energy Minister at the time of the accident. People trolled through his track record and noted his closeness with the neighboring oil rich nation of Venezuela, which is currently under strict international sanctions.

[Jerome Lynch]

Well, it's no secret that the former government held close professional relationship with the Maduro government in Venezuela in the oil and gas sector. So Stuart Young was the main person tasked with going to Venezuela and negotiating and having these meetings with the Venezuelan president. Yeah, so that is the relationship that everybody was talking about.

[Isabelle Stanley]

According to a Freedom of Information request, Young visited President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela 13 times from 2022 to 2024.

[Jerome Lynch]

People were suspicious. I know the then opposition would have raised many questions, sort of demanding the government to answer what exactly? To provide the details of his dealings with Venezuela. Not all information was provided, so that became an issue and also raised suspicion to some degree.

[Isabelle Stanley]

It didn't take long for some to wonder if the relationship between the two governments could in some way be linked to the tragedy. One source who had intricate knowledge of the industry even suggested to us that on the day of the accident there was a secret shipment of oil coming in from Venezuela. They wondered if someone wanted to use that stretch of pipeline to take in lucrative US sanctioned oil. It was an intriguing suggestion. Our source had no direct evidence, so we looked into it ourselves. We consulted ship locator apps and enlisted the help of an expert in vessel tracking and location falsification to see if there were any suspicious ships from Venezuela in the area at the time of the tragedy. We drew a blank. There was no evidence that we could find. The then Prime Minister Keith Rowley strongly denied any claims that Trinidad is helping Venezuela evade sanctions and denounced them as a lie. We put the theory to Anna.

[Jerome Lynch]

Yes, there was that theory. However, I believe there was no evidence to support that. So there were many theories coming up at that point in time and because of the sensitivity of the situation, everybody was looking to find answers and blame.

[Isabelle Stanley]

And when we put it to Jerome, he's also not convinced.

[Prakash Ramadar]

We heard quite a Lot of out there theories, I can assure you, which we had to consider. I think it's dangerous to venture into these sorts of areas which are potentially a distraction. They're part of a conspiracy theory that might circle around these sorts of events. I just don't see it myself. It's got nothing to do with Venezuelan oil busting, you know, I mean, it really doesn't.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Jerome dismisses the Venezuela theory as too outlandish, but he makes an important point.

[Prakash Ramadar]

Let's assume for the argument's sake that there was some, some grain of truth in a sanctions busting enterprise by the government of the day in Trinidad and Tobago. I mean, how does that make a difference to these men being sucked into a pipe and then not being rescued? I really do see that as a distraction and I have every possible sympathy for those families. I thought what would happen to them was disgraceful. But I failed to appreciate how the company could have acted in the way which it did in keeping them out in a bloody car park while their people were dying inside a pipe. I thought, it's so inhumane. I found it staggering that people could behave in that way. Staggering that these people were left to languish in a car park without any proper information. They were begging people at the gate for information. It's just, I mean that I think the company outrageously badly behaved.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The theories about Venezuela are at the extreme end of questioning over the tragedy. But these ideas that have sprung up to fill the gaps in the account offered by the inquiry demonstrate just how strongly people still feel about those four divers deaths.

[Jerome Lynch]

There are so many questions that still remain unanswered, at least in the minds of the population, because four people died.

[Isabelle Stanley]

At the end of the day and around us again.

[Jerome Lynch]

And still to today, it remains a heartbreaking issue in Trinidad and Tobago for the people here.

[Isabelle Stanley]

There's one other theory which has come up again and again with people we've spoken to. It's a lot less sensational, but it does fit with one undeniable thing. This tragedy, this accident wasn't a one off.

[Kazim Ali]

Good morning to you members of the media and thank you very much for coming out very early to cover our statement.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The longer we spend in Trinidad, the more oil industry accidents we hear about. People tell us about spills, explosions, lightning strikes and fires. Just take our five divers. As we heard from Christopher earlier, both he and Rishi had been caught in a fire on a berth just a few months before the tragedy. And in a coincidence that at first seemed too strange to be true in 1985. Faisal Keben's father was killed along with 13 others in an explosion while working on the exact same stretch of pipe that his son died in nearly 40 years later. But for all those stories, there is no official public data on fatalities.

[Kazim Ali]

Where that tragic accident occurred is without union representation because that's what brings us.

[Isabelle Stanley]

To this press conference. It's 8am and we're standing in a car park outside of San Fernando. There's a crowd of journalists from the national newspapers flocking around a man dressed in a sharp pinstripe suit and velvet moccasins. The man is Ansel Roger, one of the most recognizable faces in Trinidad. He's been president of the oil workers trade Union owtu since 2008 and he knows the history and inner workings of the industry better than anyone.

[Kazim Ali]

The oil industry is of critical importance to Trinidad and Tobago because the country depends on the energy sector for its income, its revenue and therefore from inception to now we have still run a one track economy.

[Isabelle Stanley]

He agrees to an interview and we sit down with him in owtu's headquarters to hear his theory on why the tragedy happened.

[Kazim Ali]

We were very disappointed over the years how they played politics instead of ensuring that they maximize the return they can get from these resources for the benefit of, of the people. And that's where our disappointment comes and that is where the standards begin to fall and that is where the country begin to suffer as a result.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Ansel claims the tragedy is part of a pattern, a result of a years long decline in Trinidad's oil sector which he says has seen safety standards plummet and cronyism flourish. He thinks it all took a turn for the worse in 2018 when the then government shut down the state owned oil company Petrotrin. The government claimed at the time that Petrotrim was hemorrhaging money and they divided it into four new companies, including Pariah. But Anso says its closure had three devastating impacts.

[Kazim Ali]

One of the things they felt they would have achieved by shutting down Petrotrend is the removal of the Oilfield workers trade union.

[Isabelle Stanley]

In that environment, when the government shut down Petrotren, they closed the country's only oil refinery and thousands lost their jobs, including hundreds of OWTU members. Antel says their layoffs weakened the union's influence in the industry and tanked their ability to monitor and lobby for safety standards for their members.

[Kazim Ali]

And the prize, the cherry and the cake for them with that is to get the union out and form these little entities where they are ununionized and where they are free. To do what they like. Since then the the standards would have fallen precipitously. And so that is the reason for a number of problems they encounter on a daily basis.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Not only did it limit the union's power to protect their workers, Ansel says Petrochin's closure changed the way the oil industry worked entirely.

[Kazim Ali]

They sent all of the workers home and then they would have threw their questionable arrangements, give contracts to labor supply provider to then employ people, workers who previously worked, some of them who choose to do that to work for a pittance. So less than one third of what they was working for.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Someone I spoke to described the new model as a contractocracy. Projects were increasingly given to third party companies who Ansel argues had lower safety standards and fewer protections for workers.

[Kazim Ali]

But the question is not just the payment, the salary, it is the standards that they are subjected to. So with no daily standards in the Paria situation there's absolutely no standards.

[Isabelle Stanley]

And to make matters worse, when forming the new companies like Pariah, Ansel says the then government filled top jobs with unqualified candidates who happen to be their friends and acquaintances. There are multiple people he takes issue with, but there's one appointee that provokes his ire more than any other. He asked us not to name them out of fear of reprisals.

[Kazim Ali]

And we make bold to say that, that his only qualification to get that job is to be in the right place at the right time, with the right person. He too never set foot, he never work, he don't know what. If oil is dripping from his crankcase of his vehicle, he cannot recognize that. And that that spells chaos not for not only for the workers, but for oil production. The evidence is there, the deterioration of the assets and so on, both offshore and land assets. And you can see just a cursory inspection of that would tell you that over time those assets have deteriorated.

[Isabelle Stanley]

In our research we found that there is substance to the idea that there are connections between heads of the oil industry and individuals in the Trinidad government. What is less clear is if this impacts whether or not the individuals are qualified for the role. One example we found was photos of the chair of Pariah Newman George golfing with the then Prime Minister Keith Rowley. When we asked Rowley about Newman's appointment, he said my friend Mr. Newman George is a highly qualified professional who I have been pleased to encourage to do public service. Ansel warns that without something changing, without the oil company and government prioritising workers safety, the pattern will continue.

[Kazim Ali]

In fact, there are a number of Instances prior to that tragedy, those fatalities with Paria, there were a number of instances where you had accidents go unreported, near misses and so on that took place. I never treated it. And as a result of that we ended up where we ended up. Unfortunately, with the deaths, there will be more. I don't want it. Nobody wants it. Nobody want to die.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Just before we arrived in Trinidad, that's exactly what happened. The press conference from earlier, where you first heard Ansel was about another death.

[Kazim Ali]

You already. All right. We would apply to your statement on this tragic incident. An accident that took place on 22 December last year.

[Isabelle Stanley]

On December 22, 2024, an oil rig operated by a private company, well Services Petroleum Limited collapsed and a worker, Pete Phillip, was trapped underwater. He died.

[Kazim Ali]

Now Today is day 43 after that tragedy, that fatality that claimed the life of a worker and that could have claimed the lives of many more workers. 75 workers could have lost their lives.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The company knows where his body is, but at the time of recording it still hasn't been recovered. It's been at sea for six months.

[Kazim Ali]

One worker end up lost in his life and to date the body of that worker has not been recovered. So we forget that. So we went into Christmas and New Year's. We celebrated New Year.

[Isabelle Stanley]

His wife was pregnant when the rig collapsed and their baby has been born without a father.

[Kazim Ali]

Body has not been recovered. Beneath the sea. No one has been held responsible.

[Isabelle Stanley]

At the press conference, there's a terrible sense of deja vu. His grieving family are here pleading for answers.

[Kazim Ali]

It hurt my heart to move my friends. Brother lost his life. My family sitting down on a job site, going to work and minded the family. Every day I have to deal with not seeing my brother again. I saw the people in the Paria incident. It's only when you're inside it. Dan did really feel how it is.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Although the circumstances are different to the accident that killed the four divers, the distraught family left behind and the lack of closure are the same.

[Kazim Ali]

Nobody knows because why they don't have answers. We have no closure for our brother. This boy was not just anybody. He was a son, he was a brother, he was an uncle, he was a husband, he is a father, he was a friend. Regardless of whatever it is, he belongs to somebody. We already accept the fact that here this is gone. But at least give us the closure that we need. That is all we are asking for. We need that closure and we need it sooner than later.

[Isabelle Stanley]

A year ago, in his report, Jerome acknowledged the lacking safety standards in the industry and he honed in, in particular on commercial diving. The field Christopher and the other men worked in. Various bodies have tried to institute requirements for years, to no avail. In fact, just three days before the tragedy, Trinidad's Bureau of Standards issued a statement saying they had made several attempts to revise the code of practice, but a consensus could not be reached among their industry partners. In his report, Jerome's 22nd recommendation was that a rule book should be established immediately. But over a year later, there are still no compulsory standards. For all the theories we've heard about this tragedy, from business continuity to Venezuelan politics, that's the common thread. A general lack of closure. Even when there is concrete evidence and clear steps to be taken, it means the families still have questions and there's no sign of any justice yet. There's one more group of people we can speak to, the ones with the real power to change things. And there's one more place we can look for answers. Next time on Pipeline. And we are heading up the west coast to the Port of Spain, which is where it's the capital that we are hopefully going to manage to ask the Prime Minister a few questions and we end up wrapped up in a national election.

[Kazim Ali]

Trinidad and Tobago will head to the polls on Monday, April 28.

[Isabelle Stanley]

A media release.

[Anand Ramlogan]

I think that one of the factors that would have influenced the decision to call the election so early is the fact that they want to preempt this podcast series and the global attention it will command.

[Jerome Lynch]

Certainly we make that commitment. We do not want to wait for an assessment to be done by the courts. Our courts are very slow. If we win the election, when we win the election, we will keep that commitment to these families.

[Isabelle Stanley]

We contacted Paria, Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Limited, Stuart Young, well, Services Petroleum, and Newman George for comment, but we did not receive a response. Pipeline is presented by by me, Isabelle Stanley. This produced by Bella SS Sound design is by John Scott. Additional reporting by Andy Uring. Additional production by John Rogers and our executive producer is Jamie East.