Bahamas could have benefited more from BPC’s $35 mil. spend on well, says company’s CEO

The Bahamas reaped no substantial benefit from Bahamas Petroleum Company’s (BPC) $35 million spend on its Perseverance #1 test well in the southern Bahamas, but it was not because the company did not want to spend locally, its Chief Executive Officer Simon Potter said yesterday.

Potter, who was a guest on radio talk show ‘The Revolution’ on Guardian Radio, told the show’s host Juan McCartney that BPC wanted to stage some of its equipment in Grand Bahama, but was given the cold shoulder by officials when the requests were made.

“In writing to various authorities and various people who were responsible… we were either ignored or received a hostile reaction,” said Potter.

He contended that as a result, the company spent “very little” in the local economy. It then made the decision to stage its assets in Miami and move them into The Bahamas as needed from there.

Potter said with Grand Bahama out of the picture, “It just made it so much easier to use ports in the US. We could easily have brought that to Grand Bahama,” he said.

“We could have stored it, we could have transported it out to the field from Grand Bahama, but in talking to various people, we were never really listened to, so at the end of day, like I said, it was a lost opportunity.” 

According to Potter, helicopters flew from Miami to the Stena IceMAX drillship, positioned south of Andros; and boats carried equipment – that could have been staged in Grand Bahama – from Miami to the ship. 

Potter said he visited Grand Bahama on several occasions and found facilities on the islands suitable for BPC’s needs.

“We could have done an awful lot more domestically in The Bahamas,” he said. “We could have used the Grand Bahama port. We could have used that as a supply base.” 

BPC will now focus its efforts on its oil prospects in the Caribbean as it analyzes results from the Bahamas test well.

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/bahamas-could-have-benefited-more-from-bpcs-35-mil-spend-on-well-says-companys-ceo/