46 Business View Caribbean - Dec 2014
barges. TOFCO’s capabilities allowed companies oper-
ating in Trinidad to have platforms constructed by a
local contractor for the first time.
“The company’s strong capabilities in building new off-
shore platforms means TOFCO stands out in the Trini-
dad marketplace, but it also means that the company
is ideally positioned to cope with many of the major
changes that come with working in the Caribbean,”
Earles said. “The biggest challenge for us is the chang-
ing criteria for design, and we’re seeing that in the
platform contract we just won.”
Because Trinidad is in an active seismic area, plat-
forms have to be built to specifications different from
the Gulf of Mexico or many other regions. The person-
nel, experience, and capabilities TOFCO has in place
make it more than capable of constructing platforms
under these challenging and changing standards.
“The result of this is the platform has heavier mem-
bers of higher-grade steel than has been seen in any of
the platforms in the past,” Earles said. “We are in the
process of building a new fabrication shop, something
that we did not have for the first eight platforms built.
This will be commissioned and completed for March
2015. It will be around 30 meters long by 45 meters
wide, which is covered for fabrication and warehous-
ing.
“The pre-fabricated structural components of the
building are on-site as well as two overhead cranes
