The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Petroleum's chief executive said that $30-$40 billion would be spent in the development, construction and production phase of the company's oil exploration project.

Speaking at the Bahamian Contractor's Association (BCA's) inaugural Regional Conference of Caribbean Contractors Mr Potter told contractors: "If you attention is racing ahead to the need for contractors at some point and time, the development, the construction and the production phase will cost $30-$40 billion dollars. The good new for contractors is the life cycle of an oil exploration project is probably measured in decades. Even if we were to drill and begin exploration next year it's not going to be several more years before we start to get into the development," said Mr Potter.

Bahamas Petroleum Company holds five petroleum exploration licenses covering 3.87 million acres in Bahamian waters and its maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Four of the licenses are in the south- west Bahamas near the Cuban border. They vary in acreage from 775,468 acres to 780,316 acres. A fifth license is held through a wholly-owned subsidiary of BPC, Island Offshore Petroleum. Last month the Government confirmed that oil explorer had fulfilled all its required license and regulatory obligations, effectively renewing the oil explorer’s licenses for another three years.

"We have already invested in excess of $50 million dollars. In order to drill the exploration well we need to find another $120 million dollars. The well will take 120 days at $1 million dollars a day so it's no small undertaking. Even if we find oil we need to asses if its big enough for  commercial production and that will require at least another three wells. That will be another half a billion just to drill those three years. The good news is we are here and we have got seven to eight years once we know  that there is a discovery to work on contractor support, the education programs and the core services we would need," said Mr Potter.

The Bahamas Petroleum chief executive said that the government could gain $30 billion dollars over the first 10 years of the project. "That's basically on a 2 billion barrel discovery. If you have a 20 million barrel discovery then it would be 10 times that.  It's a tremendous reward opportunity that sits underneath there if we could drill and assess whether the oil is there or not," said Mr Potter.