GPL admits fuel shipment delayed
-continues to deny Tobago oil spill link
The Guyana Power and Light Inc received formal notification on the day of the Tobago fuel spill informing that there would be a delay in the delivery of 75,000 barrels of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) ordered and to date the company has not delivered the fuel.
“No, it still has not been delivered…,” GPL’s Chief Executive Officer Kesh Nandall told the Stabroek News yesterday when contacted and asked about the delivery.
News of the extended delay came even as the Trinidad Guardian yesterday reported that a Panamanian firm is at the centre of the Tobago spill, the cargo was worth US$2 million and there were Guyanese connections.
A letter from HFO supplier Rapid Results and Osher International Holdings to the GPL on February 7th stated that there was a delay in the delivery. “Greetings,
“On behalf of Osher International Holdings LLC, it is my regrettable obligation to inform you that the shipment has an unforeseen delay,” a letter from Rapid Results titled ‘Unforeseen Delay’ and addressed to the GPL stated.
“The barge carried a cargo of 75,000 barrels of Heavy Fuel Oil. As I write this, we are employing every effort at our disposal to determine the soonest delivery time. As I receive additional information, I will forward to you in real time,” the letter added.
GPL maintains that to date, none of its suppliers has informed it of problems resulting in the loss of cargo but has not said what reasons were given for the delay or when the ordered fuel would be delivered.
The public utility company has not also addressed a way forward as regards sourcing, should the fuel not be delivered within a specific timeframe, given that it said that an increase in consumption had been the reason it entered into a deal with the company.
GPL’s statement last month said that it was aware of the oil spill off the coast of Tobago and joined with the rest of Guyana in expressing its concern regarding the environmental implications and impact on the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
It said that it tendered for the supply and delivery of HFO in June 2023, via national competitive bidding. Six bids were received. The tender was awarded on October 24, 2023, to Staatsolie MaatSchappij Suriname NV (the first ranked bidder). An additional award for the supply and delivery of HFO was awarded to the joint venture Rapid Results Inc and Osher International Holdings LLC (the second ranked bidder) to bolster GPL’s increasing consumption of HFO and supply requirements.
The terms of both contracts required the suppliers to deliver the fuel to GPL’s ports along the Demerara River.
“Title, ownership, and risk of loss for the fuel passes from the suppliers to GPL at the discharge port. GPL has not received any notification from any of its contracted fuel suppliers that they have encountered difficulties with their vessel(s) resulting in the loss of cargo. GPL therefore wishes to unequivocally state that the company is not related to this unfortunate incident,” the utility company said.
Meanwhile, the Guardian report said that the local partner in GPL’s additional award, Rapid Results Inc appeared to have little known history in the transport of fuel oil, and it pointed to a 2021 Georgetown Chamber of Commerce & Industry magazine which listed the company under “Healthcare”, and included a now-defunct URL, http://www.rapidresultspharma. com/.
It pointed out that records from the Official Gazette of Guyana show that the owner/operator of the company was Mohamed Hussain and that the company had a licence to import petroleum as of December 31, 2023.
The Guardian Media Investigations Desk said it partnered with Bellingcat—a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in open-source research—“to unravel some of the questions which remain: who are the owners of the barge, how did it come to be in T&T’s waters, where was it headed and who will accept liability for the environmental disaster?”
The report said that the story started in Tobago and connected entities from Sierra Leone, Panama, Venezuela, Guyana, and Nigeria.
Bellingcat and Guardian Media, the report said, found an archived version of the Rapid Results Inc website in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine from 2018, where the company listed consulting personnel including “Internal Medicine Specialist” and “Pharmaceutical and Vaccination Professionals”, pointing out that “there is seemingly no public indication that the company had previously ever been in the business of supplying fuel oil.”
However, it noted that the website of Rapid Results was “Copyright Reyaud Rahman”, who works at the Office of the President here.
Yesterday, Rahman told this newspaper that he had seen the article and was as shocked as everyone. “I don’t know why I’m even named in it…,” he said. “I’m not a part of this company.”
On February 7, 2024, a barge called the ‘Gulfstream’ was found overturned in the
sea 200 metres off the coast of the Cove Industrial Park, Tobago. Trinidadian authorities said that it was being pulled by a tugboat-identified as the ‘Solo Creed’. The tugboat has not been found since the spill.
Yesterday, the Trinidad Guardian reported that “according to the barge’s booking for a port pilot (a captain who works for a port to help ships navigate their arrival), which was reported by Tobago Updates last week, the Gulfstream was destined for the Vreed-en-Hoop terminal of GPL….”
According to the Guardian, documents it received stated “the barge was carrying 4,652 metric tonnes of Bunker C fuel oil, cargo worth approximately US$2 million. This information as well as other information in the document match the specifications of the Gulfstream and Solo Creed. The name of the captain matches crew manifest documents also obtained by Guardian Media and Bellingcat.”
The name ‘Culie Boy’ was first publicised by maritime attorney Nyree Alfonso in the Trinidad Express. Bellingcat and Guardian Media said that they have not been able to verify the legitimacy of this document, which was independently provided by a source with knowledge of the official investigation.
Rafeek and Moore, the customs agents stamped on the document, did not respond to the reporters’ request for comment.
On the owner of the vessel pulling the barge, the Guardian said that it belonged to a director of a network of Panamanian companies accused of transporting oil from Venezuela. The tugboat’s registration documents were provided to Bellingcat and Guardian Media by the Zanzibar Maritime Authority (ZMA).
“The documents show the Solo Creed was owned by a director—Melissa Rona Gonzalez—of a Panama-based firm called Melaj Offshore Corporation when it was towing the Gulfstream barge on the illfated journey that led to the ongoing oil spill. Public data from the Panamanian corporate registry shows that Gonzalez is an officer of Melaj Offshore Corporation and that the power of attorney for Melaj belongs to Augustine Jackson,” the article stated.
Jackson, the article said, who also goes by the name Captain Austin Jackson (or variations to that), is a businessman with operations in Panama, Guyana, Dubai, the Bahamas and Nigeria, and bears a Sierra
Leone passport.
Data also shows that several directors of Melaj, including Jackson and Gonzalez, share a directorship in three other companies: Innovation and Engineering Services, Inc, Milan Maritime Operations, SA, and Milan Shipping Enterprise Corporation.
The report said that Melaj and Jackson appear to have a checkered history in Guyana and Venezuela.
“In March 2019, Reuters reported that Melaj had begun transporting oil for the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) after the United States applied sanctions to Venezuela oil exports two months before, in January. US sanctions have a far-reaching impact on the petroleum industry, due to the importance of the US banking system on the sale of oil, as more than half of the world’s reserves are denominated in US dollars,” it stated.
It also pointed to a 2016 litigation where Jackson was embroiled in a legal dispute with two Guyanese businessmen.
When contacted by the Guardian and team last week, the report said that Jackson confirmed his ownership of Melaj Offshore Corporation but denied any connection to the Solo Creed or Gulfstream.
He then gave them a name and number for a man he called Dr Abraham Olalekan in Nigeria who claimed he owned the tugboat. Communication with that person was done by WhatsApp messaging, and a lot of the information given did not match verified documents they had obtained.
“Olalekan did not produce any evidence of purchasing the Solo Creed as he claimed, but did provide an ostensible bill of sale for the Gulfstream, which Bellingcat and Guardian Media were not able to verify. This document, dated August 28, 2023, said that he paid US$350,000—a far higher price than the auction price ranges in Panama just months earlier—and listed the vessel as the ‘Gulf Stream’ (sic), a misspelling of its previous name Gulfstream and even though it had been named the Sea Marlin for several years by that time, including in Panamanian court records from May 2023 onwards.
“Of note, the document is not notarized and contains no other form of third-party verification. Olalekan did not provide contact information for the other party named in the document upon request,” the report added.