Workers contain oil spill from unmanned platform off Trinidad's coast

Workers contained a 245-barrel oil spill off Trinidad's south-western coast, absorbing the crude with solvent, officials said. The 35-ton (10,290-gallon) spill from an offshore platform stretched two miles (3 km) off the coast of Point Fortin, state-owned oil company Petrotrin said.
Petrotrin investigated whether a faulty or unmanned pump caused the spill, company spokesman Arnold Corneal said. The spill happened about 2 a.m. (0600 GMT) about 15 miles (24 km) from the coast and workers contained it by afternoon, officials said. None of the oil reached land.

It was too early to estimate damage to marine life, said Kirk Jean-Baptiste, spokesman for Trinidad's Environmental Management Authority. Trinidad's spill was tiny compared to the Prestige oil tanker spill in Spain last year. About 63,000 tons (16.8 mm gallons) of fuel oil leaked from the tanker, fouling Spain's Atlantic coast.
No workers were on the platform when Trinidad spill happened, Corneal said. About 350 employees of Trinmar, Petrotrin's offshore branch, went on a daylong strike to protest the slow pace of contract negotiations. Workers were also protesting the proposed merger of Petrotrin and Trinmar's operations in part because they fear job losses.

Union official Ancil Roget said the pump failed, causing the oil spill, and the absence of workers was not the cause.
"That would have happened in any case," he said. Corneal said he did not know if the pump had to be manned at all times in order to prevent malfunctions. Corneal called the spill "one of the biggest" in recent years. About 18 barrels of oil had spilled since January prior to the incident, he said.

The one-day workers' strike caused a slight decrease in production. The company produced about 200 barrels less than its normal 35,000 bpd output. One of the main issues involves wages, officials said. Workers have rejected the company's 10 % wage increase spread over three years and have proposed a 22 % increase.
Petrotrin refines about 160,000 bpd for domestic use and for export to other countries in the Caribbean and the United States. Trinidad and Tobago, with a population of 1.3 mm, relies heavily on the oil-and-gas industry, which accounts for about a quarter of gross domestic product.