Sept. 12, 2002 – With personal injury liability insurance coverage set to expire at midnight, Hovensa announced Thursday afternoon that it was furloughing about 800 employees of seven independent contractors effective immediately.
In a release, Hovensa's vice president for government affairs and community relations, Alex A. Moorhead, said the policy providing personal injury liability coverage for all maintenance contractors at the refinery would expire at midnight.
Moorhead said in the release that Hovensa "is extremely concerned about its inability to secure liability insurance to cover the independent contractors and the impact this might have on the operation of the refinery."
Four of the 11 affected contractors — CBI, St. Croix Basic Industries, Turner St. Croix Maintenance and Wyatt V.I. — have been able to secure insurance for their own operators through affiliate companies on the U.S. mainland, the release said.
The furloughs will be of workers for the other seven companies — Addison Construction, Best Construction, Jacobs-IMC (Hovensa's primary maintenance contractor), Longview Inspection, M&M Construction, Triangle Construction and Maintenance, and V.I. Industrial Maintenance Corp. (IMC).
Work by these contractors "will be suspended until such time as Hovensa or these contractors are able to secure sufficient insurance coverage," the release stated.
Efforts to learn the name of the carrier were unsuccessful.
The current carrier gave advance notice of its intention not to renew the policy, Moorhead said, but despite extensive efforts over several weeks, Hovensa has been unable to secure coverage from any other carrier.
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