http://www.keysnet.com/2013/03/21/485987/bahamian-government-clears-way.html
How short-sighted that the Bahamian Minister of the Environment doesn’t see the clean energy potential of alternatives such as solar power. Instead, he is pursuing fossil fuel development in the pristine waters of the Bahamas that provide fisheries, tourism, and quality of life to all. The Bahamas is home to some of the healthiest corals in the Western Hemisphere. ……DV
By DAVID GOODHUE
dgoodhue@keysreporter.com
Posted – Thursday, March 21, 2013 08:18 PM EDT
The Bahamian government is allowing an oil company to conduct exploratory offshore drilling ahead of a referendum giving its citizens a say in the country’s future energy development.
The drilling would likely begin by early 2014 and be conducted by the Bahamas Petroleum Co. The operation would be near where Russian oil company Zarubezhneft is now drilling in Cuban waters in the Old Bahamas Channel south of the Andros Islands, which is next to Cuba’s exclusive economic zone with the Bahamas.
This would place another drilling operation less than 200 miles from Florida’s coast, which has at least one South Florida official concerned.
U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia, a Democrat whose district runs from Kendall to Key West, said Thursday that he fears what would happen to Florida’s coast in the event of a spill in the Bahamas
“I am very concerned to learn that off shore oil drilling will take place in our front yard and in the middle of the Gulfstream,” he said in a statement e-mailed to The Reporter. “If the Bahamas insist on moving forward with this process, I hope we can share safety standards and best practices that we have learned over the years.”
Kenred Dorsett, the Bahamas’ minister of environment and housing, said the decision to move forward with drilling before the referendum is held makes sense because there is no point in holding the ballot initiative if the Bahamas does not have economically viable offshore oil fields.
“More particularly, we are not going to ask the electorate to vote on whether they want to develop an oil industry if there is no oil to begin with,” Dorsett said in a statement last week. “Thus, we need to find out first, through exploration drilling, whether we do indeed have oil in commercially viable quantities. If we don’t, then obviously it would be completely pointless, and a shameful waste of public funds, to have a referendum on the matter.”
Dorsett said a national oil industry could help the Bahamas stem the rise of its national debt, and said there is growing support among the population to at least find out how much oil there is in Bahamian waters.
“At a time when our national debt burden is becoming increasingly difficult to bear, the Bahamian people are understandably asking whether we should not be focusing more closely on the question of whether oil exists in the Bahamas in commercially viable quantities,” Dorsett said. “If it does, it would likely mean substantially greater revenues for our country. Indeed, the discovery of oil in the Bahamas would almost certainly prove to be economically transformative for our nation for many generations to come.”
He added that Russia looking for oil about 60 miles away “dictates that we hasten our own decision-making process as it pertains to oil exploration and environmental regulation here in the Bahamas.”
BPC executives praised the government’s decision.
The “announcement paves the way for an assessment of the potential of oil resources on the Bahamian side of the border,” Simon Potter, BPC’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
The BPC is seeking a partner company to help look for the oil.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Bahamas hold up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil.
Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie’s Progressive Liberal Party is facing criticism from political opponents for changing his position on oil drilling. According to the Bahamian newspaper The Tribune, Dorsett just four months ago said no drilling would happen before the referendum, which isn’t expected to be held before 2015.
Dorsett, in his statement last week, promised that the nation’s regulations governing offshore oil exploration would mirror those enforced by countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, Australia and Trinidad and Tobago.
He also recognized that offshore oil operations pose a threat to the multi-island nation’s beaches and marine life — a major draw to the country’s tourism-dependent economy.
The Russian drilling operation in Cuba — and the proposed operation in the Bahamas — is in 1,000 to 2,000 feet and is considered shallow-water drilling. By contrast, the 2010 BP/DeepWater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico happened at more than 5,000 feet below the ocean surface.
A failed deepwater drilling operation in the Florida Straits — about 70 miles from Key West — was even deeper. Several international oil companies, starting in early 2012, leased a Chinese-built, Italian-owned semi-submersible rig to drill the depths between the Keys and Cuba.
The operation worried both U.S. environmentalists and opponents of Cuba’s communist Castro regime. But in the end, none of the companies found enough oil to indicate the area is fertile for future energy exploration.
The Cuban government was hoping for a major find that would turn the nation from being a net-energy importer to an exporter. Cuba relies largely on oil imports from Venezuela.