Tilted barge with over 8000 barrels of waste oil was subject of recent Court ruling; CDC says barge now stabilised

The tilted barge with over 8000 barrels of waste oil that is in the Demerara River and continues to be being closely monitored by the Civil Defence Commission for a potential oil leak was the subject of a recent High Court ruling. The barge may have been leaking for several months already.

According to Court documents obtained by News Source, the barge is owned by Ganshyam Mahase and Mahase Lumber yard of Great Diamond, East Bank Demerara.

In December 2025, the barge was contracted by South Eastern Shipping Corporation of Miami Florida to uplift and ship 8080 barrels of waste oil out of Guyana that it had bought from WGS Enterprises of St. Lucia.

WGS Enterprises has a contract with the Guyana Power and Light Company to purchase and remove waste oil from its power generating plants.

According to the Court documents, after the more than 8000 barrels of waste oil were collected by the barge for shipment out of Guyana, a leak was discovered in the hull of the barge, causing the Miami based company to effect the off-hire clause in the agreement, essentially discontinuing payments to the barge owner, Ganshyam Mahase, as the company found the barge to be unseaworthy.

This was all happening between December 2025 and January 2026.

The Miami based company in Court documents, indicated that the barge was removed from its agreed location and taken to the owner’s own premises without its knowledge. It has remained there since January, with the Miami based company expressing its concern over the environmental impact that the already leaking barge could have.

The matter ended up in Court after the local company that owns the barge, Ganshyam Mahase, made an application to the Court to terminate the agreement between the two companies and to also recover the money that the company did not continue to pay under the agreement after it effected the off-hire clause when the leak in the hull of the barge was discovered.

The local company wanted to recover that money by selling off the more than 8000 barrels of waste oil that was stored in the barge.

In September, the Court dismissed the application by the local company citing the arbitration clause in the agreement and that the Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the application, referring the parties to the arbitration clause.

Now one month after that decision was handed down and arbitration is yet to begin, the barge has been discovered tilting on its side with emergency agencies being forced to monitor it because of a potential oil spill.

In an update this afternoon on that monitoring, the Civil Defence Commission stated that as part of its ongoing response to the present positioning of the barge, containment booms were deployed around the affected vessel as a precautionary measure to restrict the movement of any oil.

Additionally, corrective measures are being taken to stabilise the vessel, which the CDC indicated is now upright and stabilised with its cargo in tact.

The CDC said the situation is under control.

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