Grenada steps up preparation for oil exploration

A recent agreement between a Nigerian oil and gas company and the Global Petroleum Group (GPG) could soon see the Eastern Caribbean nation of Grenada step up exploration activities to discover oil and gas like its regional neighbors.

Oceangate Oil and Gas Engineering says it has a production-sharing agreement with GPG covering an area of 7,500 square kilometers of water offshore Grenada. However, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell’s administration says authorities are still trying to find critical exploration information and data about previous agreements made by the Keith Mitchell government, which lost the general elections in 2018. GPG is based in the US but is believed to have links to Russia.

GPG had done some exploration work more than five years ago and declared that a single area it had explored could contain more than 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. Grenada is less than 100 miles north of oil and gas-rich Trinidad and Tobago. Successive governments have always believed that its offshore waters contain a bounty of oil and gas that could transform the Spice Isle economically.

But even as the two companies collaborate, PM Mitchell recently announced that he had established a special technical working committee to help the government fully understand what the previous administration had done, agreed to, signed off on, and had put in place to develop an oil and gas sector during its time in power.

Now Grenada newspaper, for example, is reporting that former finance minister Nizam Burke would lead the working group, which would also include prominent citizens Rodney George, Richard Duncan, Raymond Nurse, and a representative from the office of the attorney general.

Local authorities had complained of inheriting very little information on the agreements with GPG after it took office two and a half years ago. They blamed the previous cabinet for acting shady, leaving the incumbent in the dark about what had been agreed to. PM Michell says he will update the nation in the coming weeks.

“I certainly intend to provide to the nation before the end of the month a comprehensive update of the work of the technical working group led by Nazim Burke regarding what it has been doing. I have had one meeting with a GPG representative since that time, and we have engaged GPG to try to understand and get a full picture of where we are. I will provide the public with a comprehensive update on the work of the technical working group and where we are in relation to Grenada’s hydrocarbon legal obligation, potential exploration, and any other additional matters raised.”

The move by Grenada to get a grip on its oil and gas potential comes in the wake of a recent decision by Total Energies of France and APA Corporation to begin production offshore Suriname in 2028.

Neighboring Guyana, which had found commercial quantities of oil and gas in 2015, started producing four years later. Daily production is averaging over 600,000 barrels daily. Jamaican authorities are also excited about the prospects of a commercial find following preliminary work to investigate on and offshore oil seeps on the island in recent months.