BNOCL in search of money to resume onshore oil exploration

By Emmanuel Joseph

The Barbados National Oil Company Limited (BNOCL) is looking for between $24 million and $30 million to resume onshore drilling for oil and gas over the next 12 months.
However, BNOCL’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) James Browne has admitted that money is hard to come by to restart the exploration programme that has been stalled for the past five-and-a-half years.
He told Barbados TODAY that oil production has remained steady for the last few years at around 400 barrels a day.
“We have not increased oil production recently. We would need to restart our drilling programme…. We are looking at over the next 12 months or so,” he said.
“You have to raise capital for it. It’s a problem raising the cash. So once we have raised the cash, we can do it…. There are a lot of capital programmes out there but we have to prioritise. We are looking at several things including that, so it depends on what you can get the best bang for your money. You have to borrow money to do that [drill],” the BNOCL chief explained.
According to the Energy Division’s website, there are about 240 oil and associated gas wells onshore Barbados of which 80 to 100 produce at any one time. These wells are located in the Woodbourne Development Area (WDA) and range in depth from 2,000 to 6,000 feet. Production is mainly from the Scotland Sand Formation.
Meanwhile, Browne said plans to start offshore exploration for oil and gas were progressing well.
“That is still in play. We still have blocks being evaluated,” he said.
Addressing the country’s oil import bill, Browne said it remained steady annually.
“You must remember we produce crude oil. Whatever crude oil we get locally is exported. We used to sell it at one point to Trinidad, then Jamaica,” he pointed out.
The fuel import bill nearly tripled in the first quarter of 2022 when compared to the same period the year before.
In July last year, then Minister of Energy Kerrie Symmonds, who is now Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, said the Government spent a total of $455 million on imported petroleum products from January to April that year, while for the same period in 2021, the bill was $162 million.
Data sourced from Statistica, an online company listed among the top 350 firms in the Majestic Million, stated that crude oil reserves in Barbados in 2021 amounted to 1.98 million barrels, down from 2.12 million barrels compared to the previous year.
It said that Barbados’s reserves have been on a mostly downward trend since 2014 and that in 2021, crude oil production averaged one thousand barrels per day. At the same time, refined petroleum was the fore most imported product in Barbados.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb