Jagdeonowconcernedoverlackofadequateinsuranceincase...

Frompage20 prevailing means of transporting the commodity over distances greater than canbecoveredbypipelines, running aground is the most common cause of large oil spillsfromtankers.

It records that 32 percent of large oil tanker spills occurring between 1970 and 2020wereduetogrounding

Other notably incidents involving the unplanned release of hydrocarbons into the ecosystem includes the Keystone Pipeline oil spill whichoccurredinDecember last year when a leak in the Keystone Pipeline released 14,000 barrels of oil into a creek inWashington County, Kansas That leak was the largest in the US since the 2013 North Dakota pipeline spill

Closer to home, the El Palito oil spill occurred at a refinery, Venezuela, in July 2020 Thespillwasestimated to be 25 thousand oil barrels andwasattributedtoattempts to double production from 20,000 to 40,000 daily oil barrels to 61,500 when “multiple leaks” developed Therefineryhadbeenunable to produce gasoline for several weeks That spill reached as far as the eastern coast of Falcón State and MorrocoyNationalPark

Reference could also be madetotheNorilskdieseloil spillwhichwasanindustrial disaster near Norilsk, KrasnoyarskKrai,Russia.

That incident obtained in May2020whenafuelstorage tank at Norilsk-Taimyr Energy’sThermalPowerPlant floodinglocalriverswithup to17,500tonnesofdieseloil.

It was described as the second-largest oil spill in modern Russian history, after the 1994 Komi pipeline spill, where 400,000 tonnes of crudeoilwerereleasedtothe environment between August 1994 and January 1995.Otherproducingnations such as those located on the

African continent have over the years suffered from the consequences of regular oil spills,manytimesleadingto years of protracted court action Only recently this publication reported on the actions of the Peruvian Governmentwhichwasforced to take one of its operators Repsol to court, in order to secure compensation over a spill that had occurred in that country The company was also fined by the Peruvian courts That company presently holds interest in Guyana’sEEZ

Thefactis,whereverthere a r e o i l operations exploration, production, storage, t r a n s p o r t i n g o r refining thereexiststherisk ofanoilspill,whetherthrough human fault or mechanical issues At the end of the day, thehydrocarbonswouldhave to be clean up from the ecosystem and someone or entityfootingtheBill.

InGuyana’scasewithita storagecapacityofsomethree million barrels, increasing productionandtransportoutof thecountry,thepotentialforan oil spill, is clear and present danger, hence Lall’s response to Jagdeo’s new found directive to the EPA, “that’s whatIwantedtohear.”