Eliz-a-beth Gon-za-les Se-nior Re-porter eliz-a-beth.gon-za-[email protected] Two years af-ter Gulf-stream cap-sized off the coast of To-ba-go, caus-ing an oil spill af-fect-ing Scar-bor-ough and the South-ern Caribbean, Trinidad and To-ba-go has on-ly man-aged to re-cov-er just over $61 mil-lion from its clean-up op-er-a-tions from the In-ter-na-tion-al Oil Pol-lu-tion Com-pen-sa-tion Funds (IOPC Funds).
The IOPC had a com-pen-sa-tion of-fer to T&T of $86.3 mil-lion.
The clean-up op-er-a-tions were han-dled by the Min-istry of En-er-gy and En-er-gy In-dus-tries and Her-itage and to-talled $311.7 mil-lion ac-cord-ing to claims sub-mit-ted to the IOPC.
Ac-cord-ing to doc-u-ments ob-tained by Guardian Me-dia In-ves-ti-ga-tions Desk, the MEEI has on-ly been re-im-bursed $51.6 mil-lion from $138.9 mil-lion in claims sub-mit-ted and re-viewed, while Her-itage has on-ly been re-im-bursed $10 mil-lion from $50 mil-lion in claims sub-mit-ted.
The doc-u-ments showed that the IOPC re-viewed $189.3 mil-lion in claims, queried $84 mil-lion, re-ject-ed $15 mil-lion and even-tu-al-ly paid $61 mil-lion as of March 2026.
If T&T wants to ac-cess more mon-ey from the IOPC, it has un-til Feb-ru-ary 2027 to make fur-ther claims.
Un-der the IOPC’s rules, claimants ul-ti-mate-ly lose their right to com-pen-sa-tion un-der the 1992 Fund Con-ven-tion af-ter a three-year pe-ri-od.
The lat-est IOPC re-port on the Gulf-stream oil spill, dat-ed March 10, 2026, said 306 claims had been as-sessed and $60,567,688 had been paid.
Those claims cov-ered clean-up op-er-a-tions in To-ba-go and fish-eries where oil from the spill al-so washed ashore.
It al-so cov-ered op-er-a-tions sur-round-ing the sal-vaging of the ves-sel and the re-main-ing bunker fu-el.
T&T has ac-cess to the IOPC’s 1992 Fund, which al-lows coun-tries af-fect-ed by spills to seek com-pen-sa-tion for el-i-gi-ble clean-up and re-cov-ery costs.
But claims are not paid au-to-mat-i-cal-ly.
They must be sup-port-ed by in-voic-es, ac-count-ing records and oth-er ev-i-dence show-ing the mon-ey was ac-tu-al-ly spent and that the loss can be quan-ti-fied.
In May 2024, the IOPC doc-u-ment had said: “Ini-tial es-ti-mates of the cost of the re-sponse to the oil spill, in-clu-sive of oil re-moval from the wreck so far, is in the re-gion of USD 23.5 mil-lion (TTD 160 mil-lion).
So far, it is es-ti-mat-ed that USD12.5 mil-lion (TTD 85 mil-lion) has been spent as of 6 April 2024.
Fur-ther costs and claims for eco-nom-ic loss-es are ex-pect-ed.
Bulk clean-up op-er-a-tions were com-plet-ed in March 2024 and the shore-line clean-up is ex-pect-ed to be com-plet-ed in April 2024.
The oil re-moval from the wreck is al-so ex-pect-ed to be com-plet-ed by mid-May 2024.” In a May 11 IOPC doc-u-ment, T&T’s del-e-ga-tion ac-knowl-edged that the coun-try was par-ty to the in-ter-na-tion-al oil-spill com-pen-sa-tion con-ven-tions, but had not yet passed the lo-cal laws need-ed to bring those rules ful-ly in-to lo-cal law at the time of the Gulf-stream oil spill.
That did not stop T&T from mak-ing claims and get-ting ac-cess to the IOPC Funds fol-low-ing lob-by-ing by for-mer min-is-ter of en-er-gy Stu-art Young in 2024 dur-ing his tenure.
Ac-cord-ing to the doc-u-ment, T&T told the IOPC that it faces chal-lenges ded-i-cat-ing mon-ey to the claims process and to the con-tin-ued in-ves-ti-ga-tion of the So-lo Creed and its own-ers through the Mar-itime Ser-vices Di-vi-sion and the Cari-com Im-ple-men-ta-tion Agency for Crime and Se-cu-ri-ty (Cari-com IM-PACS).
In an ex-clu-sive in-ves-ti-ga-tion by Guardian Me-dia and Belling-cat in March 2024, the reg-is-tered own-er of the So-lo Creed was iden-ti-fied as Melis-sa Rona Gon-za-lez, an of-fi-cer of Melaj Off-shore Cor-po-ra-tion, whose prin-ci-pal own-er is Au-gus-tine Jack-son.
Jack-son has a his-to-ry of in-volve-ment in oil deals in Venezuela and Guyana.
But when con-tact-ed, Jack-son claimed that the So-lo Creed and the Gulf-stream barge had been sold to Abra-ham Olalekan of Nige-ria.
The IOPC Sec-re-tari-at said it had been en-gag-ing with the State At-tor-ney’s Of-fice in T&T on the prop-er im-ple-men-ta-tion of the con-ven-tions in-to do-mes-tic law.
The Gulf-stream barge cap-sized and sank off To-ba-go in ear-ly Feb-ru-ary 2024 while be-ing towed by the tug So-lo Creed.
Ac-cord-ing to the IOPC re-port, the barge be-gan spilling oil about 16 km off To-ba-go be-fore com-ing to rest be-tween 150 and 200m off Ca-noe Bay.
It said the ves-sel was be-lieved to have been trav-el-ling from Pozue-los Bay, Venezuela, to Guyana.
No emer-gency calls were trans-mit-ted by the tug.
The IOPC re-port said rem-nants of the oil slick trav-elled about 830 km across the Caribbean Sea.
On Feb-ru-ary 26, 2024, traces of oil and tar balls washed up on the east coast of Bonaire.
T&T Sal-vage LLC and QT En-vi-ron-men-tal Inc were re-tained to re-move oil from the wreck and re-move the ves-sel.
By Au-gust 2024, 32,675 bar-rels of oil had been re-cov-ered from the Gulf-stream.
The barge was re-float-ed on Au-gust 19, 2024, and towed to Trinidad, ar-riv-ing on Au-gust 22, 2024.
The oil was lat-er ad-ver-tised for sale by auc-tion.
Ac-cord-ing to the doc-u-ment, be-cause the ori-gin of the oil could not be de-ter-mined, on-ly one in-ter-na-tion-al buy-er was will-ing to pur-chase it in late 2025 for about US$986,000.
The IOPC re-port said the mon-ey will be used to de-fray costs in-curred by the coun-try and re-duce its claims against the 1992 Fund.
The re-port al-so states that the main re-sponse is-sue still to be re-solved was the man-age-ment of oily waste col-lect-ed and stored in To-ba-go.
While the claims process con-tin-ues, the tug linked to the dis-as-ter re-mains un-trace-able, and Gov-ern-ment is un-cer-tain how much it is pre-pared to spend be-fore it of-fi-cial-ly ends the hunt.
In writ-ten re-spons-es to Guardian Me-dia In-ves-ti-ga-tions Desk, the Min-istry of En-er-gy said the Mar-itime Ser-vices Di-vi-sion is re-spon-si-ble for spear-head-ing the in-ves-ti-ga-tion of the tug and barge and co-or-di-nat-ing with Cari-com IM-PACS, the T&T Coast Guard and oth-er mar-itime agen-cies to lo-cate, ar-rest and iden-ti-fy the own-ers of the So-lo Creed.
The min-istry said the Of-fice of the At-tor-ney Gen-er-al is re-spon-si-ble for le-gal pro-ceed-ings against the tug and its own-ers once lo-cat-ed.
How-ev-er, the min-istry said the Mar-itime Ser-vices Di-vi-sion had not in-curred any di-rect ex-pen-di-ture in re-la-tion to the search for the So-lo Creed.
Satel-lite sur-veil-lance ser-vices were en-gaged at the re-quest of the di-vi-sion, but the min-istry said the as-so-ci-at-ed cost was borne by the Pi-lots’ As-so-ci-a-tion.
The ser-vice was pro-cured be-fore April 2025 at a one-time fee of ap-prox-i-mate-ly €5,000.
The ser-vice cov-ered ap-prox-i-mate-ly 300,000 square km and fo-cused on de-tect-ing the ves-sel’s ra-dio fre-quen-cy sig-na-ture.
“To date, these ef-forts have not yield-ed any con-firmed lo-ca-tion of the ves-sel,” the min-istry said.
The IOPC re-port said the So-lo Creed was ar-rest-ed in An-go-la in ear-ly May 2024 for breach-ing the bound-aries of sev-er-al oil-field ex-clu-sion zones.
This coun-try in-struct-ed lawyers to ini-ti-ate ar-rest pro-ceed-ings against the own-ers of the So-lo Creed and/or its crew.
An ar-rest ap-pli-ca-tion was grant-ed in Lu-an-da and the tug was placed un-der ar-rest with guards on board.
How-ev-er, be-fore the No-vem-ber 2024 ses-sions of the IOPC Funds’ gov-ern-ing bod-ies, T&T was no-ti-fied that the tug had es-caped ar-rest and to date re-mains miss-ing.
It said ef-forts con-tin-ued through diplo-mat-ic mea-sures and by trac-ing crew mem-bers who were on board the tug at the time of ar-rest.
Asked whether Gov-ern-ment was get-ting to the point where it may have to count its loss-es, the min-istry said no for-mal de-ci-sion had been made.
It added Gov-ern-ment was still ac-tive-ly search-ing for the tug.
The min-istry added that no for-mal spend-ing lim-it had been es-tab-lished.
En-er-gy Min-is-ter Dr Roodal Mooni-lal told Guardian Me-dia In-ves-ti-ga-tions Desk that the State is work-ing to sup-port its claims be-fore the Feb-ru-ary 2027 dead-line.
“The to-tal bill for the clean-up spent by the gov-ern-ment through the Min-istry of En-er-gy tax-pay-ers’ mon-ey was more or less $311 mil-lion, of which we have re-ceived $61 mil-lion from the com-pen-sa-tion fund.
So we have over $250 mil-lion out-stand-ing,” Mooni-lal said.
The min-is-ter said the process was be-ing slowed by miss-ing pa-per-work linked to spend-ing un-der the for-mer ad-min-is-tra-tion.
“What is trou-bling for me is that in do-ing this busi-ness of get-ting the claims in or-der and so on, it ap-pears that the for-mer ad-min-is-tra-tion un-der Mr Stu-art Young, Dr Row-ley and oth-ers spent mon-ey, and we do not have prop-er pa-per-work or ac-count-abil-i-ty, trans-paren-cy,” he said.
“I some cas-es, we can-not even ver-i-fy where the mon-ey went and the ex-pen-di-ture of what now is over $250 mil-lion on the clean-up op-er-a-tions.” Mooni-lal added: “We are work-ing on this, but we are strug-gling be-cause a lot of mon-ey was paid out and we can-not find the pa-per-work and the ac-count-abil-i-ty sys-tems in place.” Mooni-lal did not iden-ti-fy the spe-cif-ic pay-ments, con-trac-tors or in-voic-es for which records were miss-ing.
And fol-low-up ques-tions were unan-swered.
But for-mer en-er-gy min-is-ter Stu-art Young said min-is-ters were not re-spon-si-ble for keep-ing those records.
“Mooni-lal con-tin-ues to show how in-com-pe-tent and dis-hon-est he is.
Nei-ther a Prime Min-is-ter nor a Min-is-ter would be in-volved in doc-u-men-ta-tion or records, or rather they should not be.
I can-not at-test to how the UNC gov-ern-ment op-er-ates, as they ap-pear to get in-volved in pro-cure-ment, etc.
All doc-u-men-ta-tion and record-keep-ing were han-dled by the com-pe-tent pub-lic ser-vants who man-aged the process.
If Mooni-lal is to be be-lieved, then he should con-tact the Per-ma-nent Sec-re-taries he moved from the Min-istry of En-er-gy and the oth-er hon-est and com-pe-tent staff that he and Kam-la Per-sad-Bisses-sar were quick to re-move from the Min-istry of En-er-gy.” Young al-so said he did not in-volve him-self in pro-cure-ment linked to the oil spill clean-up but in-stead ad-vo-cat-ed in Lon-don for T&T to ac-cess the IPOC funds.
Gulf-stream oil spill, IOPC compensation, Tobago cleanup claims, Maritime Services Division, Solo Creed tug