Joint investigation points to identity of tug owner involved in Tobago oil spill
In the hunt to find the owners of a tug and a barge responsible for one of the Caribbean’s worst oil spills in recent years, a joint investigation carried out by Bellingcat and the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian has laid the finger of blame on a Panama-registered company called Melaj Offshore.
According to Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group, and ship registration documents provided by the Zanzibar Maritime Authority, the listed owner of the Tanzania-registered, 1976-built tug Solo Creed which accompanied the Gulfstream barge during its disastrous journey was Melissa Rona Gonzalez, an official of Melaj Offshore Corporation.
The authority confirmed that the period of registration for the tug includes the start of the journey on December 30, 2023, until it abandoned the Gulfstream barge on or around February 6. The registration period expired on February 29.
The Panamanian corporate registry shows that Gonzalez is an officer of Melaj Offshore and that the power of attorney for the firm belongs to her husband, Augustine Jackson.
The tug and the barge have a history of towing Venezuelan oil. The barge’s final, fateful voyage saw it take some 35,000 barrels of oil on a voyage that was meant to end in Guyana, but along the way, the barge ran into difficulties.
After the 48-year-old barge capsized off the coast of Tobago, the oil slick spread hundreds of kilometres west and reached the east coast of the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire and later Aruba and Grenada. Curaçao is another island currently on alert.
Last Friday, Bonaire’s acting governor Nolly Oleana said that clean-up efforts are in full swing. Oil has washed up periodically on the island’s eastern coastlines but has not made it to the dive sites and heavily trafficked tourist areas on the island’s western side. She has pointed out that more oil could spill into several inlets on the island.
The island officials are working with the government of Trinidad and Tobago regarding compensation for the spill.
“We are in contact with Trinidad and Tobago. Together, we do want to prosecute. A legal expert from the Netherlands is in contact with a lawyer from Trinidad and Tobago. We both just don’t know who owns the ship yet. And we also don’t know who owns the oil product on the ship. Once this is known, follow-up steps will be taken,” Orellana said.
