You just knew it wouldn't be long before they jumped on the band wagon. LOL

The following information in *italics* has been extracted for the most part from a recent article in the US Edition of Bloomberg and provides very telling details about the extent to which our small nation is being exploited the gigantic global oil conglomerate known as Shell.

*Oil trading is a very profitable business. If you manage to pay no taxes on it and can work from a Caribbean beach, well, then it’s corporate heaven.*

*Shell is Europe’s largest energy company by market value, has managed to tick all the boxes: It has a very profitable trading subsidiary, which pays not a single cent in taxes, in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. The little-known entity is called Shell Western Supply and Trading Ltd., ("SWST") a trading outfit dealing in crude from West African and Latin American countries. It’s a cog in the huge trading operation inside Shell that many shareholders pay little attention to.*

*SWST operates from its offices in The Bahamas located at: Lyford Cay House, Western Road, New Providence.*

*According to its latest annual tax contribution report, released last month, Shell’s Bahamas subsidiary generated more than $652 million in profits in 2020, making the Caribbean country its 5th most profitable operation globally. More remarkably, Shell achieved the excellent returns employing just 35 people in The Bahamas. Its staff worldwide numbers 87,000.*

*The year 2020 wasn’t an anomaly. During the 2018 to 2020 period, the oil major made almost $2.5 billion in profits with the Bahamas subsidiary — a staggering 14% of the parent company’s total net income over those three years.*

Since 2006, the very profitable Bahamian company of “Sun Oil” which is owned by the Bahamian enterprise known as FOCOL has been the local marketer and distributor of Shell fuels and lubricants products throughout The Bahamas and Turks & Caicos. And the FOCOL/Sun Oil group is controlled for all intents and purposes by the very greedy Franky Wilson, a/k/a "Sir Snake".

Bahamians are paying exorbitant electricity bills and extremely high gasoline prices at the pump, not to mention the environmental and other costs associated with oil spills, while Sir Snake and his business partner Shell are using The Bahamas to mint huge fortunes year after year for themselves. Talk about The Bahamas being used and abused! Small wonder many Bahamians believe the political ruling class has sold them out. Not Good!!

Given that the MT Arabian and its crew were contracted by FOCOL/Sun Oil to transport the oil to BPL's Exuma storage facility, I suspect the invoiced terms of the sale/purchase were what is commonly known in the business as DAT, i.e. Delivery at Terminal.

That being the case, BPL should incur no loss attributable to the spilled oil because the oil never made it into BPL's storage tank as is so clearly evidenced by the photos of the oil in the sea. Both BPL and government senior officials need to be wary of all the talk by Snake about a ruptured hose being responsible for the incident.

Snake seems to be making every effort to subtly imply or infer that somehow BPL alone should be made to bear full responsibility for the purportedly damaged hose he claims caused the spill.

I believe Hanna-Martin went to QC at a time when most of its teachers were foreigners. Her more fundamental problems though are not related to a lack of educational opportunities in her childhood years.

We can be as 'anti-foreigner' as we want to be, but we must accept that persons who have not been well educated and/or do not have what it takes 'upstairs' are simply not cut out to be teachers of our children, especially in a classroom setting.

> Rashema Ingraham, Waterkeepers Bahamas executive director, told Tribune Business the last time she could recall revisions being made to the plan was 2011 - more than a decade ago - despite the movement of petroleum-based products through the country’s shipping lanes on an almost daily basis.

>While a “ruptured hose” was being blamed for diesel fuel leaking into waters off Georgetown, she added that issues of liability and who is responsible for environmental clean-up and the associated costs need to be better defined in Bahamian laws and regulations.

a paid for announcement by environmentalists representing the very greedy snake (?)

Rashema Ingraham seems to have forgotten the tightening up of our environmental laws and regulations pertaining to oil spills that occurred in response to public concerns about the seafloor oil drilling permits that had been granted to BPC and the Equinor oil spill. LOL

Snake would look us straight in the eyes while informing us with his forked tongue that the 3 crabs were eaten by a hungry flock of seagulls and the conch missing from its shell was used for shoreline fishing by a local boy.

Don't forget many of the parents of these kids were also educated in these same schools under a public education system that, like our successive corrupt and incompetent PLP and FNM governments, has steadily gotten progressively worse over the years.

LMAO. Incompetent Davis has moved from Crypto to Carbon Credits and both are blowing up (destroying) the social fabric and economies of nations around the world as a result of the great amount of corruption they attract.

An ever increasing number of people are suffering from stress disorders caused by poverty inflicted on them by the failed economic and social policies of successive corrupt and incompetent governments. And our grossly incompetent minister of health himself is a major contributor to the great amount of stress many Bahamians are feeling today.

> Sir Franklyn Wilson, the BISX-listed petroleum products supplier’s head, told Tribune Business the spill was caused by “a ruptured hose” that was transferring diesel fuel from a vessel, the MT Arabian, to Bahamas Power & Light’s (BPL) storage facility on the island.

No doubt the very greedy Snake will seek to claim the "ruptured hose" belongs to BPL or was somehow ruptured by BPL personnel if he finds out the MT Arabian's owner does not have adequate insurance coverage.

> Revealing that FOCOL’s Sun Oil subsidiary had contracted with the Arabian’s owner for the fuel delivery, he {Sir Snake} added that it was now “investigating” whether that company, Gladstone Road-headquartered D&T Shipping, has the necessary insurance in place to cover the costs associated with oil spill containment and remediation.

Why would FOCOL's Sun Oil subsidiary **only now** be "investigating" whether the MT Arabian's owner has the necessary insurance in place? One would have thought verification of adequate insurance would already be on FOCOL or Sun Oil's files given that the vessel was contracted by FOCOL/Sun Oil.

Surely, when you are the party who contracted the vessel, you don't wait for an oil spillage to occur before finding out whether necessary and adequate insurance is in place.

And one would reasonably assume our country has laws and regulations to (1) require the owner of a vessel like the MT Arabian have the necessary insurance in place, and (2) require any contractor of the vessel (like FOCOL/Sun Oil) to verify the insurance is current and adequate at the inception of the oil transportation contract and before any oil is loaded on the vessel for transport.