The sun rises over the Atlantic as a massive barge holding over 1.3 million barrels of oil floats serenely on calm waters. It might seem idyllic, but this vessel which has been parked in the waters between Venezuela and The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago for more than a decade could spell disaster for countless sea creatures and the people who depend on them.
The FSO Nabarima, sailing under the Venezuelan flag, is an oil storage platform used to contain crude oil extracted from Venezuela’s Corocoro oil field. Typically, oil is stored in vessels like the Nabarima before being transferred to tankers for transport abroad. But Venezuela’s political crisis has complicated things. Since current President Nicolas Maduro was re-elected in 2018 in what international observers have called a rigged election, the South American nation has been struck with international sanctions, including a petroleum embargo by the US, which was previously the largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil. As markets dried up, Venezuela was forced to store oil.
The Nabarima, which has been rusting for some time, collected its full quota of 1.3 million barrels of oil in its hold nearly five times as much as the Exxon Valdez spilled in 1989. Then it started to take on water.
The barge’s problems aren’t entirely surprising. Because of government mismanagement, economic crisis, and international sanctions, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petroleo de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA) has let crucial infrastructure descend into disrepair. Experts say this disrepair has likely contributed to several other recent spills in the region.
When the news broke in late August that the ship was taking on water, stakeholders in Trinidad and Tobago were unsure what to make of the situation. News coming from state media in Venezuela is heavily censored, making reports unreliable at best, and outright lies at worst. State owned oil companies in Trinidad and Tobago also have a track record of misleading citizens about the source and extent of oil spills. And in a September press release, Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries went to great lengths to advise the populace that the matter was in Venezuela’s hands, noting that officials from the island nation couldn’t enter Venezuelan waters without permission.
The statement was little comfort to locals who depend on the ocean for their living. In our country, people are not acting seriously when it comes to oil spills, says Kishore Boodram, assistant president of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Fisherfolk Association. If this tanker sinks, it will destroy our wildlife, our mangroves, fenceline coastal communities. It will wipe out fishing as a livelihood. For an island nation like Trinidad and Tobago, a large enough oil could even make large areas of the coastline unlivable.
Trinidad and Tobago, a significant producer of oil in the region for over fifty years, has seen its share of oil spills in the past, each affecting the local flora and fauna deeply. French anti-pollution agency CEDRE cites a 1979 collision between a Greek oil tanker and other ship resulting in almost half a million tonnes of crude oil (3.6 million barrels) covering the Caribbean sea with a dark, ominous slick just north of Tobago. The 1979 disaster is recorded as the biggest ship-based spill in history.
Local Trinbagonian environmental activist group Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) has been lobbying the Trinidad and Tobago government to take action. The General Secretary of the organization, Mr. Gregory Aboud, has written local authorities and even appealed to the US and EU embassies to push the provincial government into action.