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By Jenique Belgrave-The likelihood of hydrocarbons being found offshore Barbados is high, Senior Minister for Coordinating the Productive Sectors Kerrie Symmonds has revealed.
With studies underway to evaluate Barbados’ offshore potential, Symmonds announced on Thursday, without going into details, that officials had identified blocks with encouraging potential.
“I don’t want to go and give news now before it is ready to be given, but let us say the prospectivity is highly regarded and we want to be able to have natural gas as the bridging fuel,” the former Energy Minister said.
Last year, the Government announced its decision to open the bidding process on 22 blocks in Barbados’ waters to attract international oil firms to its potential offshore deposits.
The country currently produces about 1 600 barrels of onshore oil per day.
Delivering the feature address at the Canada-Caribbean Institute Symposium at the Sagicor School of Business of the University of the West Indies, Symmonds again defended the administration’s decision to pursue hydrocarbon exploration while pushing to make the island 100 per cent renewable energy reliant by 2030.
He said oil and natural gas finds would result in significant benefits for the economy.
Symmonds highlighted that even as the world was seeking to embrace renewables, oil-producing countries were still drilling for that resource.
“Let’s be frank, all of the oil producers of the world, including Canada, speak the language of climate change and putting a stop to that which is now being done by small entities or like those of us in Barbados who are contemplating finding natural gas.
“But the reality is, none of them is saying ‘I will not continue to produce the oil that I produce or I’m shutting down all my wells’. The Americans are not going to tell you that that’s what’s going to happen in Texas. The British, for all their partnership value, will not tell you that North Sea will not be full of Brent crude. They’re not going to do that because they intend to produce for the next 50 years…. Nobody is coming forward to say we are prepared to pay you to keep the natural gas and the oil in the ground,” he stated. (Barbados Today)
