Oil companies search Caribbean for oil

KINGSTON, Jamaica -- The turquoise waters that have long brought treasure seekers to the Caribbean now are drawing a new kind of explorer as countries across the region increasingly open their seas to oil exploration.

From the Bahamas and Cuba down to Aruba and Suriname, international oil companies are lining up to find potentially rich offshore deposits in the Caribbean. The countries hope drilling could lead to a black-gold bonanza, easing demand for imported oil and diversifying their economies.

It's a long-standing dream for many. As the Dominican songwriter Juan Luis Guerra once sang, "If petroleum sprang from here, oh but there would be light and hope."

So far, the twin-island nation of Trinidad & Tobago is the only major hydrocarbons producer in the Caribbean, and its waters are crowded with offshore platforms. The country sits just about seven miles off the coast of Venezuela, which has the world's largest proven oil reserves. It's pushing hard into deep-water drilling and has signed production-sharing contracts with British oil company BP for new exploration blocks.

Other Caribbean nations are also authorizing or at least aggressively pursuing offshore exploration.

The Bahamas recently announced it would try offshore exploratory drilling and said it should have enough information by late 2014 to decide whether it can move forward with production. Bahamas Petroleum Company chief executive Simon Potter said a rig will drill to subsea depths of roughly 22,000 feet in some 1,600 feet of water adjacent to Cuba's offshore territory.

Barbados and Jamaica have also been seeking well exploration in their seas, while the Anglo-Dutch group Shell announced in December it was preparing to sink its third offshore well in nearby French Guiana, with other companies also exploring there.

"What once was a trickle is fast becoming a stream in the Caribbean, with new announcements of expanding deep-water exploration lease offerings and drilling permits being issued," said Lee Hunt, a Houston-based consultant who retired last year as the longtime president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors.

The push for exploration has been fed partly by worries that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's nearly two-year-long cancer fight and March 5 death would affect a Venezuelan aid program called PetroCaribe that sells petroleum to 17 Caribbean countries on preferential terms.

PetroCaribe provided $14 billion worth of Venezuelan oil to the region last year, with Cuba being the principal beneficiary.