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Venezuela's oil workers union said on Monday a natural gas exploration rig that sank in the Caribbean sea last week had experienced technical faults months before and that it was preparing a report on its findings.The more than $200 million Aban Pearl platform, operated by state oil company PDVSA, sank on Thursday, apparently after water rushed into one of the giant submarine rafts supporting the football field-sized structure.Coming just weeks after a deadly blast at a rig operated by BP Plc in the Gulf of Mexico, it was a big blow to PDVSA's image and to rig co-owner Aban Offshore of India."The platform had water entry problems months before," Eudis Girot, head of the United Federation of Oil Workers (FUTPV), told Reuters, adding his union wanted conditions at all offshore operations to be investigated as a matter of urgency. "We believe there were problems with the structure."Newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago reported in August that the Aban Pearl experienced flotation problems while being towed to Venezuela back then, and that its crew sought help from Trinidad and Tobago's coast guard to evacuate it briefly.But Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Thursday that the platform had later been inspected and passed by an international auditing firm before beginning work on the OPEC member nation's Mariscal Sucre natural gas project.The Aban Pearl had just finished testing the Dragon 6 well when it sank. PDVSA said the crew had been able to seal the well and that there was no risk of a gas leak, but officials said there was operational fuel stored on the submersed rig.Gustavo Guzman, industrial safety manager at PDVSA, told state television on Monday that there was "minimal probability" of that fuel leaking into the sea, and that the company was carrying out site inspections twice a day."We have seen that everything is absolutely normal ... there is no pollution," Guzman said.PDVSA's vice president of exploration and production, Eulogio Del Pino, said the platform was storing about 400,000 liters of fuel in its tanks.He said PDVSA officials spent several hours on Sunday with members of Singapore-based Petromarine Energy Services Ltd, which had provided the Venezuelan company with the platform."The plan is to float, move and use what can be refloated and used," Del Pino said. "It is very important to off-load these 400,000 liters," he added.
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