Missing rig worker's family loses patience

RELATIVES of Well Services Ltd employee Pete Phillip patience has run out with the company 44 days after he went missing and are now calling for immediate action to recover his body.

Phillip was left unaccounted for after the December 22 partial collapse of Well Services' Rig 110. Search and rescue operations were converted to a search and recover operation on December 26 as the company presumed he was dead. The operation had since been paused to acquire the specialised equipment.

Phillip's younger brother Elvis, his sister Paula Baxsam, and their mother Patricia joined Oilfields Workers' Trade Union president general Ancel Roget outside the company's Otaheiti office on the morning of February 4. They all expressed dissatisfaction with the company's approach to the situation.

"Is only when you inside it, then you does really feel how it is. Them could drink up and eat up all they want while other people grieving. Look the length of time it already happen. Just give we back our brother."

Employed with an international company, Elvis believes Well Services could do more to recover his brother's body.

"I know when a company has to do an operation there's something called expediting. I know how fast equipment could reach here. If they have to bring a jumbo plane to get something into the country to do their operation, they'd do that at whatever cost it is. I know how it is. But this, recovering my brother, not making money for them so they have no care in the world."

A company update two weeks ago to Phillip's wife, Candacy, said the company hired for the recovery operation could not find the necessary equipment locally. It said the equipment was procured internationally and is expected to arrive in-country within the first two weeks of March.

However, Elvis and his sister are expecting disappointment when that time comes.

"We done expecting some excuse. Mark my words," Elvis said.

If the timeline is adhered to, Baxsam said she doubts there would be anything left of her brother to recover.

"What it is we going to bury? Bones maybe? Clothes? A boots? We don't know what it is we getting to even self-open a box and say we getting to see our sibling for the last time."