inside the pipe: Journalist Richard Charan exits a 28-inch (71-centimetre) pipeline, one similar to the one in which the four divers lost their lives in the Paria tragedy. —Photo: DEXTER PHILIP
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inside the pipe: Journalist Richard Charan exits a 28-inch (71-centimetre) pipeline, one similar to the one in which the four divers lost their lives in the Paria tragedy. —Photo: DEXTER PHILIP
LMCS Ltd’s managing director, Kazim Ali Snr, has provided a reason why it was possible for air pockets to exist in the undersea pipeline in which his son and three other divers fought for their lives, possibly for days, before they drowned.
In a supplemental statement given to the commission of enquiry into the Berth 6 tragedy off Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre facility on February 25, Ali suggested a cause for the pressure differential in the hyperbaric chamber, which sucked an inflatable plug into the 30-inch-wide pipeline, along with the divers and their equipment.
The vortex took the divers down the shaft and into the vertical part of the pipeline that is encased in concrete and buried under mud in the sea floor between Berths 6 and 5.
Ali said of the cause for the sudden suction: “I believe it could have been due to the undulating pipe and the air that would have been trapped in there.”
He said when the plug was installed, there was liquid under it.
“Somewhere in those ten days (from when the plugs were put in to February 25, 2022), the conditions could have changed. For instance, if there was air in the pipe, it could have come out at the top of the pipe at Berth No 5.”
He said: “In hindsight, if I was instructed or had known that the pipeline was not straight but undulating, then I would have included that in the method statement, a step for measuring of the pressure at both risers, and if the pressure was not equal, then I would have equalised the pressure before removing the plugs.”
He said on a level pipeline the pressure would be equal. “An inspection of the line by a diving team would not have revealed if the line was straight... From my experience working in Petrotrin and Paria and having installed some lines myself, I assumed that the information that the lines were straight was correct because in my experience, measures are put in place to ensure that the lines remain level. One of the reason for this is to avoid air pockets.”
Ali said the plugs used during the work on the pipeline would not have contributed to the air pockets which survivor Christopher Boodram described since the air would have bled out through the riser (the vertical section of the pipe) once the line was flat.
The issue of air pockets and breathable air inside the pipeline is an issue in the hearings of the commission of enquiry since there is conflicting information on how much liquid and gaseous content were in the pipeline before the suction happened, and different stories about whether LMCS or Paria was responsible for extracting the contents of the pipeline, and the quantity removed.
Ali also said as far as he was aware, no family member of any of the trapped divers agreed to abandon the rescue attempt. “The families were there to ask them and to help them make that decision. Paria did not consult with the families who were present on Paria’s compound over the three-day period,” he said.
In his statement, Ali also mentioned a December 2021 incident where there was a fire on a project site at Paria, with LMCS workers risking their lives to close a flange that was leaking gasoline, and which could have reignited.
“That, in my view, was a more dangerous undertaking than diving in a water-filled 30-inch pipeline,” he said.
Further information about the amount of air inside the pipeline was disclosed during the cross-examination of Paria’s technical and maintenance manager, Michael Wei, who was asked about the company’s own document which said the pipeline had an estimated 2,000 barrels of oil before LMCS began the project at Berth 5.
Wei was shown company records which indicated that before the divers installed the plugs, between January 21 and February 3, air was blown into the pipeline, and more than 1,200 barrels of content was removed from the line, leaving the pipeline about a quarter filled.
Wei was then shown a letter from Paria to the Occupational Safety and Health Authority and Agency, dated July 28, 2022, in which Paria gave the total amount of hydrocarbon removed from the pipeline at 125 barrels.
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THE blame game continued between Paria Fuel Trading Co Ltd and LMCS over the diving tragedy with focus yesterday on a plug and whether it caused the accident.
Paria’s attorney, Gilbert Peterson SC, in his questioning of LMCS HSE manager Ahmad Ali, tried to impress that the divers did not have to remove the inflatable plug, when they were doing works on sealine 36 pipeline on February 25, 2022 and their bid to do this resulted in them being sucked into the pipe.
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