This country needs money. All these people who saying we shouldn't drill for oil ean makin no sense. Why leave money in the ground. If the government going to make 25% off any oil found then that's less VAT and other taxes we have to pay. Only rich people can be environmentalists. Y'all can't be suffering like most of us who been without jobs for months and eating fire engine every day. Let the people dem at least drill to see if anything there. I read up and it says they only gat a 35% chance of finding anything so I don't understand what all this noise about. Chances are they aint ga find nothing but at least they should check to see if we have anything.
The govment could then try to renegotiate on what the payout will be. Yinna people who living out west in ya big house ain't feeling no pressure. This country needs money!!!!!

We are also overstating the chances that there will be an accident. Everytime you get into an airplane there is a chance that you will not make it to your destination. We all acknowledge that. Does that mean we should shut down the entire airline industry because of this? Of course not. There are hundreds of oil wells that are drilled each year. When was the last time you heard of a major oil spill? one in 2010? How many major plane crashes have we had this year 3 or 4? When you look at the number of wells that are drilled and the number of major spills that occur, the probability is very low that you would have a spill that would completely decimate our country. Someone spoke of Tourism, it being our main source of revenue and that is correct. Is this risk free also? Nope. We are only one ISIS extremist away from completely destroying that industry as well. If one of these guys were to slip through our iron clad airport security (tongue in cheek) and gain entry into the country and decided to check into Atlantis and start the new year's fireworks show early, what do you think would happen to our Country? There would be no more tourist coming here after that I can guarantee. We need a second industry that is based on Natural resources. We have only two horses in the race (tourism and financial services) and both of them can be sent to the knackers quite easily im my opinion. Bahamians wake up!!!!

Guess all of you guys above me are either A. Gainfully employed or B. Save the Bays Saints who believe that the "environment" is the only thing that matters. With Billions of barrels of oil being shipped through Bahamian waters annually we are already "at risk" for an oil spill and have been "at risk" for decades. We have been "one oil spill away" for much of our modern history and to date we have had no catastrophic incidents despite thousands of tankers moving through the Bahamas over the years. Should we bar them from our shipping lanes? How would the international community react if we did. Also we have drilling programs that are planned to take place immediately adjacent to our maritime border with Cuba that further puts us "at risk". Do you think our politicians have enough savvy to convince the Cuban Regime to not allow foreign companies to lease blocks in their waters just because it may pollute ours? Last time I checked the ocean is continuous and any spill on their side would also be coming our way. The risks are there my friends whether we chose to acknowledge them or not. The structures that have been identified 150 miles south of Andros are enormous and the seismic indicates that these reservoirs contain Billions of barrels of oil. The implications of a find would be transformative to our economy. The fact that both the former FNM and current PLP administrations who have both worked to develop the new Bill and regulations have had the insight to also include a sovereign wealth fund to preserve revenues from petroleum for future generations should also be commended. At GDP growth of a trickle over 1 percent for the last decade were not doing to hot right now. Our unemployment rate is officially 15% but we all know that it is probably much higher than that. Oil is transformative to economies. This can either be good or bad. Countries like Norway have used it for good, they rank in the top three countries with highest GDP per capita in the world (higher than the US even) and have a sovereign wealth fund that is north of 800 Billion dollars (yes you read that right that is $800,000,000,000). The new legislative regime if passed into law limits the government (whether PLP or FNM) from using more than 5% of the revenue from petroleum to fund any of its annual budgets. This limitation should ensure that the remaining 95% is invested (by our central bank) in global stock markets so that there is a return that allows the fund to grow on a yearly basis and not be depleted.

Statoil declined their interest for the three licenses they applied for in partnership with BPC because it was taking too long for them to be approved (they were sent in years ago) and a change in their overall corporate strategy to focus more capital in basins and countries where they are already committed and have commenced operations. My feeling is that the reasons were not technical as a company of that size and with that many experts in house would have never agreed to license an area in partnership with such a small player (BPC) if they did not believe there was great potential in the licensed acreage.

50 Billion is an estimate based on the government getting a 25% royalty because the trap in question is simply huge ( > 1 Billion barrel potential). BPC's estimate is 40 Billion based on a $80 per barrels crude price but this is a low estimate in my opinion as crude prices on commodity markets are now north of $100 per barrel. BPC is being conservative and discounting by 20%. Also there is a very good chance that the trap in question contains much more than 1 Billion barrels as the seismic shows multiple play types at various horizons all the way down to the early Jurassic, which is the target depth. At target depth there are additional stratigraphic traps ( the primary one is an anticline four way dip closure) that was not considered when the estimate of 1 Billion Barrels was given for this structure. These stratigraphic traps are also huge and would add substantially to the oil volume under the structure. So even the estimate of 50 billion may be conservative and lowballing the potential based on what I see.

I am not sure why Minister Dorsett chose to take this course of action but I imagine that it may be because it is one of the standard approaches to oil spill management that depends on the severity and nature of the spill.

Methods for cleaning up include:
Watch and wait: in some cases, natural attenuation of oil may be most appropriate, due to the invasive nature of facilitated methods of remediation, particularly in ecologically sensitive areas such as wetlands.[47] Pezeshki, S. R., Hester, M. W., Lin, Q. & Nyman, J. A. (2000). The effects of oil spill clean-up on dominant US Gulf coast marsh macrophytes: a review. Environmental Pollution. 108: 129-139.

You are correct, I was wrong when I stated that the government has elected to use the norwegian model. What they stated was that they were examining various models and that the norwegian model in particular was one that they were studying carefully. They have not confirmed what model they will use, we will have to wait and see. Norway's sovereign wealth fund is $838 Billion (http://www.swfinstitute.org/fund-rankin…), it has grown substantially as they are heavily positioned in US equities and there has been a bull market going on for some time now.

Little impact is my personal opinion as I am unaware of any metric by which oil spill severity is measured or assessed. I deemed them little impact based on my cursory view and my perception that they received limited media attention as I am unfamiliar with the majority of incidents in the report. I agree that all oil spills have some environmental impact however I don't agree that they are all catastrophic in magnitude, or that ecosystems can't recover in a reasonable amount of time from minor ones (if you have any scientific evidence to support the contrary please share). The geology of the Bahamas (normal pressured rocks at depth) is quite different from the Gulf of Mexico (High pressured rocks at depth) therefore the chances of a blowout like what occured for DeepwaterHorizon/Maconda is further reduced. The point I was trying to make is the data you provided suggests that of all the recorded incidents less than 5% actually involved crude oil spills. Of the that 5% most involved spills that were minor based on the amount of oil (in gallons) that was involved. The safeguards I am referring to is the legislation that will speak to how the oil revenues are handled (i.e. sovereign wealth fund, etc). I surmise that this legislation will also cover what liability would be incured by the company responsible for the spill given the unlikely chance that one may happen. We will have to wait until they are published to see what the particulars are. Qatar was used to illustrate the effect the petroleum sector had on the standard of living http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co… The fact there are factions in the country that may be associated with terrorism has nothing to do with the wealth that comes from the petroleum sector. These are two separate issues. Once again I am not stating that the environmental issues are not important, but they must be weighed in light of the potential benefits plus the likelihood of occurrence. Your thoughts?

Philip and Bahamianpride,
Both of you have valid points on the myriad of issues being considered here. Concerning the risks with drilling I still think they are minimal with regard to the statistical likelihood of adverse events or a catastrophic accident occuring. I took a look at the data on the NAOO website provided above by Kilemwitdakno. Interestingly, of the 2635 incidents they have recorded only 153 incidents involved crude oil leaks or spills. And of these, outside of the ones we already know about such as Macondo or Exxon Valdes, most were minor and little environmental impact. Also let's not forget that oil exploration in Bahamian waters is not without historical precedent. There have been safe drilling campaigns done in our waters over the decades as we have had five wells drilled so far (the latest by Teneco in 1986). There was no impact to the environment as we today enjoy prisitine beaches and as stated previously the technology they had to prevent accidents 20 years ago was nothing like what is standard today. With regards to the comments made about mismanagement of oil profits by the government, there is always that potential but there are safeguards that are being put in place to mitigate this. The Minister of Environment of the previous FNM government, Earl Deveaux and the incumbent Kenred Dorsett, have both stated that petroleum regulations and the petroleum act would both be updated and would include legislation that dealt with how oil proceeds would be handled by the government. In fact both governments have elected to use the Norwegian model, which in my opinion is the gold standard as Norway's sovereign wealth fund (fueled by oil its profits) has grown to a whopping 800 Billion dollars and controls 1% of publicly traded shares globally (yes entire world). One of the main caveats of the Norwegian model is that the government can use no more than 4% of the revenues from petroleum to fund its operations during an annual budget cycle. The remaining 96% is put into the fund that is managed by the central bank. Mr Dorsett has already stated a couple months ago that an identical sovereign wealth fund will be created for the Bahamas. Our politicians are not perfect put by and large they are all patriots (both FNM and PLP) and it would be foolhardy to willfully destroy your own nation. After all they are bahamians like us and like us, have children who they want to insure a brighter future for. Just look at Qatar, they went from one of the poorest nations in the world with an ecomomy based on fishing and pearl hunting to a nation that is now ranked as the richest country in the world per capita after the discovery and commercialization of the Dukhan oil Field. Not many country's of small size has had opportunities like the one that is being afforded us. Norway had one on which they capitalised, and so did Qatar. We have an opportunity now, will we do the same?

To say that this prospect would be an amazing opportunity for our country is an understatement. The oil prospects identified by BPC have been classified as supergiant as one of the structures are believed to hold over one billion barrells of oil (there are 20 of them by the way). With the government and Bahamian people standing to split the profits 50/50 with the company it would be unwise not to commercialize any find if exploration drilling confirms that we have oil. When you look at how transformative the petroleum sector has been to the economy of some nations, norway and qatar for example, can we really afford not to confirm and develop a natural resource such as petroleum. When you look at how many offshore wells are drilled every year globally the risk of catatrosphic events such as blowouts is really small. This coupled with new safety equipment now available as a result of the Maconda accident in the Gulf of Mexico further minimizes the risks. Billions of barrells of oil is already shipped through the Bahamas each year as we have several major transhipment lanes for oil tankers running through the islands. This coupled with Cuba drilling on the opposite side of the maritime border means we are already assuming all the inherent risks but are getting none of the benefits. That first prospect they are planning to test could be worth 100 billion dollars (crude ~ $100 per barrell) over its lifetime.