The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Oil exploration opponents yesterday said efforts to raise the $200,000 security ordered by the Supreme Court are being complicated by the belief there will be no more drilling in Bahamian waters.

Sam Duncombe, reEarth’s president, told Tribune Business “it’s not a done deal” that Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) has given up on finding commercial oil quantities despite the failure of its initial Perseverance One exploratory well.

Yet such perceptions, she indicated, were making it difficult for environmental activists to raise the necessary bond to cover BPC’s legal costs so that the trial on the substantive issues raised by their Judicial Review.

Declining to confirm how much of the $200,000 has been raised to-date, with just 14 days left to meet the deadline imposed by Justice Petra Hanna-Adderley, Mrs Duncombe said: “We are doing what we need to do. A lot of people seem not to grasp that because BPC did not find oil in this particular well, it’s not a done deal.

“It’s so far from being a done deal. They can come back at any time, drill and do the same thing all over again.” While BPC’s Perseverance One well failed to discover commercial oil quantities, the oil explorer has yet to signal it has abandoned The Bahamas completely given its statements about “monetising” its licence assets in this jurisdiction.

Reading between the lines of its latest statements, BPC will likely seek to renew its five licences that are due to expire at end-June 2021 but is unlikely to drill another well in this nation unless it can find a farm-in or joint venture partner to share the financial, technical and operational risk. In such a way will it monetise its licence, with the Perseverance One well data already attracting new interest.

“I don’t have the exact numbers, but there are multiple people out there fund raising,” Mrs Duncombe said. “If we have to pay for justice then that’s really no justice. It’s completely unsustainable.

“Every time an issue is raised, if everything was transparent and in the sunshine, as the FNM promised, we’d have been able to see what the permitting was and everything that had been approved. We’d not have to go to court.

“This ‘government in secrecy’ benefits the developer and the Government; it does not benefit the people of The Bahamas. Having to take every developer to court is not a sustainable situation for this country. If we have to pay for justice and come up with $200,000 every time we need answers.... I’m at a loss. I don’t know how the country moves forward.”

Rashema Ingraham, Waterkeepers Bahamas executive director, yesterday acknowledged that fund-raising efforts are “half-way there to the point” of the 30-day deadline set by the judge to cover BPC’s “security for costs”.

“It’s going pretty good,” she added. “We’re just working to be ready for our date in court. We are pretty confident we are going to be ready. Whether or not we have anything near the amount ordered for by the court, so we have all the necessary legal funds there, I can’t speak to that because it’s ongoing.

“It’s going well, and we’ve spent a lot of time reaching out to supporters and doing our best to get people to pitch in or chip in. We’re hoping for positive feedback from persons we’ve contacted. We’re actively working to get to that [$200,000] point.”

Justice Hanna-Adderley had previously ruled that BPC’s opponents “are not immunised from an application for security for costs simply because their action raises points of law of public importance”.

She gave Save the Bays and Waterkeepers Bahamas, the two environmental groups that initiated the Judicial Review challenge to BPC’s permits and the process by which they were obtained, 30 days - effectively until the end of March - to come up with a bond to cover the oil explorer’s legal costs.

The activists’ position is that the Judicial Review’s merits be heard and ruled upon by the Supreme Court so that the Bahamian people have a full understanding of BPC’s licence terms and commercial deals reached with the Government.

They believe it is also critical that the Bahamian judicial system determine what approvals must be obtained, and processes followed, so that the permitting processes for future exploratory wells can be properly established.

“To have this action stayed is going to set us back another five years, which we cannot afford as a matter of public importance,” Ms Ingraham said in a previous interview. “A lot of the questions we were asking in the legal process have not been answered, and that is whether or not there are additional avenues for BPC to apply for exploration wells in other licence areas as well as the one it has just drilled in.”

Voicing concern that BPC can apply for further well Environmental Authorisations (EAs), she added that the judicial system is also needed to determine whether the Planning and Subdivision Act’s site plan approval and excavation permits under the Conservation and Protection of the Physical Landscape of The Bahamas Act are required.