By: Kimberly Ramkhalawan
September 30, 2022
Barbados will open its Offshore Licensing Bid Round on December 1st, 2022. Foreign Trade and Business Minister, Sandra Husbands, disclosed the statement earlier this week when as she addressed the opening of the three-day Energy Local Content Workshop and Share Fair.
Speaking at the fair, Minister Husbands shared that her government had plans to launch the Barbados 2022 Offshore Licensing Round through its Ministry of Energy and Business.
She said “Interested companies will be invited to nominate acreage from available blocks, for inclusion in the bidding process. The upcoming licensing round presents an opportunity to explore the island’s untapped deep-water potential under a competitive legal, fiscal and regulatory framework.”
In recent weeks, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has shared the importance of having a domestic supply of natural gas even as her country seeks to transform into a more climate resilient nation, and adhering the reducing their carbon footprint.
Earlier this year in June, Barbados hinted that it intended to hold another licensing bid round for offshore blocks within the next three months as the island seeks to transition to a 100 percent renewable energy island by 2030. Two offshore licenses had already been issued and signed in 2015 and only became effective in 2020 following the approval of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessments.
While Government had also endorsed merger of BHP and Woodside Energy at the start of the year, agreeing that Woodside Energy would continue the work on the Carlisle Bay and Bimshire Blocks, which had been awarded to BHP.
However, the Foreign Trade Minister has also shared the importance of the energy sector as being pivotal to transforming the nation’s economy as well as to its development. Minister Husbands shared that the energy opportunity would in turn create and facilitate possible investments, innovations, new industries, and jobs, that would lead to sustained economic growth.
She added, while “the new global economy was being driven by renewable energy, energy ownership, and energy investment. These realities and the need to make local businesses viable to compete on the international market help to inform the mandate of the Barbados Energy Local Content Development Project.
Minister Husbands explained “However, the ultimate goal is to ensure that the country’s transition from fossil fuels to 100 per cent renewable energy sources is realised. This way, we can ensure that all Barbadians have access to energy that is reasonably priced, reliable, and sustainable.”
In June this year, the Barbados Government shared it was “striding ahead with the formulation of its Local Content Policy, with a view to equipping its citizens with the requisite tools and standards to be able to participate at the international level when that call comes”, with the view that it “can strategically position Barbados to succeed in an internationally competitive environment in the supply of goods and services relevant to offshore oil and gas, offshore wind and other renewable energy installations”.