Potter: BPC, govt in reconciliation process on license fee payments

Though the Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) has completed its test well and found no commercial quantities of oil, the company is still locked in reconciliations over its license fee payments, BPC’s Chief Executive Officer Simon Potter revealed Wednesday.

Potter, who made the remarks on the Guardian Radio show ‘The Revolution’, explained that the reconciliation is meant to decide what has been paid to government and what is still owed to government.

“Our obligation is to pay in advance, which we do and there are times when the license fee accumulates and times when it doesn’t, and it’s just as the attorney general (AG) has said, it’s a reconciliation of what’s been paid and what’s owed,” Potter said.

“As the AG said we’re still in the process of reconciliation.”

It was reported in Tribune Business almost one month ago that Attorney General Carl Bethel revealed the government received a license fee payment from BPC, but did not accept that the amount was correct.

“They’ve sent the money, sent a check, but we’ve not accepted it,” Bethel was reported as saying. “They’ve tendered what they say the amount is, but we don’t agree. We’re now engaged in discussions that we call a reconciliation.”

Bahamians have not been privy to the inner workings of the agreements between BPC and the government.

‘The Revolution’ host Juan McCartney questioned Potter on Wednesday about why Bahamians have not been able to review the deal struck on behalf of the people of the country.

Potter said, “Like all agreements they are commercial documents and to the extent that they have sensitive commercial information in them, then they are held confidential between the government and the company.

“To be perfectly honest, the only commercial confidential elements are really the royalties and I think we have touched on it last time on your program.”

Potter explained that the law defines the royalties that would be paid out, if commercial quantities of oil were found, as 12.5 percent, while the agreement between BPC and government calls for more than double that amount.

According to Potter, much of the rest of the agreement between BPC and the government defines what the company’s obligations are.

“Really the rest of the document is what you need to have done and by when, how you’re supposed to have done it, the notices you’re supposed to give and if you’re successful, then how you can divvy up the royalties and really that’s about the extent of the document,” he said.

“It’s an agreement between the company and the government, so I can’t just sort of say ‘let’s show everybody’, it’s a government document that is commercially confidential, so it would have to be in agreement between the two parties.”

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/potter-bpc-govt-in-reconciliation-process-on-license-fee-payments/