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Barbados is pressing ahead with plans to launch the Barbados 2022 Offshore Licensing Round on December 1, 2022.
Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Sandra Husband announced during Monday’s opening of the three-day Energy Local Content Workshop & Share Fair, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, that interested companies will be invited to nominate acreage from available blocks, for inclusion in the building process.
She indicated that recently, at the international meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy, held in August in Houston, Texas, the Ministry of Energy and Business formally announced its plans to launch the Offshore Licensing Round.
“The upcoming Licensing Round presents an opportunity to explore the island’s untapped deep-water potential under a competitive legal, fiscal and regulatory framework,” she said.
Also announcing that the Barbados Energy Local Content Project has registered rapid progress since its implementation in April this year, Minister Husbands said that benefits of the project are already evident.
According to her, as a result of the project, for the first time, energy stakeholders in Barbados are actively engaged and coordinated in exploring how to cooperate and collaborate with the Government, to ensure that the emerging industry opportunities yield new economic gains and decent incomes for Barbadians.
“As the Energy Local Content Project continues to progress, indeed this workshop and share fair will open even more beneficial opportunities, including the creation of local employment, supply chain opportunities associated business development expansion, technology transfer, economic diversity, and direct revenue streams.
“Our local content project can strategically position Barbados to succeed in an internationally competitive environment regarding the supply of goods and services relevant to offshore oil and gas, wind, and other renewable energy installations,” she said.
The minister added that the Barbados National Energy Policy 2019-2030 is a key policy document establishing visionary goals-aimed at developing local human capacity and collaboration and promoting opportunities for local entrepreneurship and international investment. Moreover, Husbands said the Government is seeking to ensure that the economic value generated from investments made in the development and utilisation of the country’s energy resources are maximised for the benefit of all Barbadians.
The share fair is a business development partnership between the Ministry of Energy and Business and the Commonwealth Secretariat, focussing on promoting early engagement between suppliers and potential clients, to provide new opportunities for clients, project owners and their major contractors.
The fair is expected to provide opportunities for project owners and their major contractors to share their work plans with the supplier community; to get the suppliers prepared when the projects take effect and for suppliers to understand how best to access work opportunities with the IECs [International Energy Companies] and other clients including how to make the IEC’s clients approved vendor list. (AH)
