By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) director yesterday argued that “pressure groups” cannot dictate to a sovereign nation whether it should seek out and exploit its natural resources.

James Smith, the former finance minister and Central Bank governor, told Tribune Business that had BPC’s Perseverance One well struck commercial oil quantities it should be the government - and, by extension, all the Bahamian people - determining whether to pursue this opportunity rather than a small number of environmental activists using the courts.

“As a sovereign nation, The Bahamas has the right to search for and determine what resources and how much are within its borders and, with scientific evidence, can decide whether to pursue it,” he said. “It’s always been the sovereign’s right to determine that, not any pressure group......

“If oil was found then the government should decide, even if it needs to get a fresh mandate from the people who put them there, rather than pressure groups. No country should be run by minority pressure groups. If they want to make these kinds of decision, they should run for Parliament.”

Waterkeepers Bahamas and Save the Bays, the two environmental groups behind the Judicial Review challenge to BPC’s permits and approvals, have indicated they plan to see the action through to the bitter end despite the oil explorer abandoning its exploratory well after no commercial oil quantities were found.

Mr Smith, who together with former Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) chief, Ross McDonald, comprises BPC’s Bahamas-based directors, railed at the last-minute legal action that came after the company spent more than ten years and $120m in preparation to drill Perseverance One.

He added that the environmental groups would also have restricted the government’s freedom to act “at a time in our history when we’re in the midst of a pandemic, the economy is going south rapidly and the government has very limited options”.

Arguing that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”, Mr Smith said the drilling and sealing of Perseverance One without any oil spills or pollution showed that activist fears on this issue had been “greatly exaggerated and embellished” without any scientific facts to support them.

And he added that the government, at no cost to itself, will obtain from BPC’s efforts samples and analysis of the Bahamian seabed that could prove useful if it chose to explore other resources that may have been detected in the area.

Among the unanswered questions is whether BPC will seek to renew its five so-called “southern licences” whose terms expire at end-June 2021. Mr Potter, in a December 11, 2020, affidavit filed in response to activist opposition, said the renewal application must be submitted by end-March 2021 and will depend on the Perseverance One results.

Given the outcome, that renewal must be in some doubt. And there is also the issue of whether BPC will persist with its legal demands for the environmental activists to lodge $200,000 as “security for costs” so that their Judicial Review action can move forward. It is also uncertain whether it will oppose the substantive case, given the lack of clarity over its future Bahamas activities.

Environmental activists have confirmed the Judicial Review challenge will proceed, citing the need for the courts to provide clear guidance on which permits and approvals future oil wells must obtain, and the processes they must follow.

Among the most critical issues to be determined are whether oil wells need to obtain site plan approval under the Planning and Subdivisions Act, and an excavation permit under the Conservation and Protection of the Physical Landscape of The Bahamas Act, as well as the application of merchant shipping laws and international pollution treaties.

Joe Darville, Save the Bays’ principal, described himself as feeling “fantastic, exuberant and ecstatic” upon hearing that BPC was sealing its exploratory well without finding commercial oil quantities.

“I don’t think we’re going to cancel or opt out of the Judicial Review,” he told Tribune Business. “There are other potential situations that have to be dealt with. I don’t think there’s any reason [for BPC] to be joining this action right now, and we may not have to come up with that $200,000 security for costs.”

Sam Duncombe, reEarth’s president, warned that oil exploration in Bahamian waters is not a dead issue. “This is a tiny, tiny reprieve for us but it’s not the end of the road by any stretch of the imagination,” she said of BPC’s announcement. “But for the moment we are ecstatic. That’s the best wake-up call I’ve had for a long time.”

Casuarina McKinney-Lambert, the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF) executive director, told Tribune Business that BPC’s failure to strike commercial oil quantities with its Perseverance One well had given this nation a chance “to choose sustainability over drilling”.

She argued that Bahamians, as well as the government, must realise “we have something really good going for us” in the country’s pristine environment and sustainable tourism and fishing industries that should never again be endangered by oil exploration or similar activities.