Oil that Spilled from Barge in Tobago Might Be from Venezuela

A barge that capsized in February and caused a large oil spill near Tobago that also affected neighboring Caribbean islands might have picked up the fuel from Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago's energy minister Stuart Young said on Monday.

"The vessels were on the way to Guyana," the minister said of a barge being towed by a tug boat while revealing the results of his government's investigation on the incident.

The spill, previously identified by Trinidad's authorities as fuel oil, emerged from a capsized vessel first spotted by the country's Coast Guard on Feb. 7. Thousands of barrels of the fuel leaked in total as authorities struggled to safely plugged it. The fuel blackened Tobago's coastline and also hit Bonaire's coast.

(Reuters - Reporting by Curtis Williams; Editing by Marianna Parraga)