Government Approves New Oil Exploration Contracts

Cabinet has given the green light for two companies to enter into Production Sharing Agreements for oil and gas exploration and production in Belize. The agreements are with Maranco Limited and Cara Energy. According to a Cabinet brief, the decision follows a recommendation from the Ministry of Natural Resources, Petroleum and Mining but Cabinet says the agreements are subject to certain conditions. What those conditions are, however, was not disclosed in the brief. Maranco is not a new name in Belize. Back in 2011, the company was awarded a PSA for petroleum exploration in northwestern Orange Walk by the Dean Barrow administration, an area that included part of the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area. That decision drew objections from environmental organizations, including APAMO and the Belize Coalition to Save Our Natural Heritage, that warned about the potential impact of oil exploration on sensitive ecosystems and protected areas. Then in 2013, the company announced that it had struck oil at its “South Canal Bank” well number three but needed strategic investors to extract. Not much was heard from since. The renewed appearance of Maranco in a Cabinet-approved PSA comes against the backdrop of Belize’s long-running legal and environmental battles over oil concessions. So, while Cabinet has now approved these new agreements, the outstanding question is what conditions have been attached and whether those details will be made public before exploration moves forward.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

Watch the full newscast here: