Record 1 · 19 February 2024
Good Morning Tobago interview
Pearce Robinson was interviewed by Kandace Jackson on Tobago Updates' Good Morning Tobago on 19 February 2024 on vessel tracking, the period in which transponders were switched off, the cargo, ownership, the Ministry of Energy's statement on vessel names, the response tier and compensation for fisherfolk.
Record 2 · 14 February 2024
Bellingcat identifies the barge
Bellingcat reported that the vessel was likely an unpowered barge, the Gulfstream, part of an articulated tug-and-barge system without its own IMO number. The same day the Ministry of National Security named the tug Solo Creed, bound for Guyana from Panama.
Record 3 · 20 February 2024
The route and the leak
Bellingcat traced the tug and barge from Panama to Pozuelos Bay, Venezuela, where AIS transmissions were off, as first reported by TankerTrackers. Satellite imagery showed leaking from about 3 February and capsizing by the morning of 6 February. The barge had been renamed Sea Marlin before 2018.
Record 4 · 3 March 2024
Ownership of the Solo Creed
Bellingcat and the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian reported, from Zanzibar Maritime Authority registration documents, that the Solo Creed belonged to a director of Panama-based Melaj Offshore Corporation, a firm with a history of transporting Venezuelan oil. Court records had described the barge as presenting water leaks months before the voyage.
Record 5 · 26 May 2024
The tug resurfaces in Angola
Bellingcat verified by satellite imagery that the Solo Creed, dark since 5 February, had been detained off Luanda by the Angolan Navy on 11 May 2024 for breaching an offshore oil security perimeter.
Record 6 · Ministry of Energy
Pursuit and arrest of the Solo Creed
The Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries said it was seeking to verify reports of the tug's detention in Angola, and later that an Angolan court had ordered the Solo Creed arrested to secure Trinidad and Tobago's claim of more than $244 million, described as a preliminary figure.
Record 7 · IOPC Funds
Cargo and compensation
Trinidad and Tobago's submission to the IOPC Funds records that Institute of Marine Affairs analysis of oil taken from the wreck identified persistent Bunker Fuel C, and that about 15 km of coastline was affected.
Extracts are summarised from the document of record, which is linked above. Where a passage is disputed, this newsroom will publish the correction alongside the extract.