The Barbados government expects to open its Offshore Licensing Bid Round on December 1 this year.
“Recently, at the International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy, which was held in Houston, Texas, the Ministry of Energy and Business formally announced its plans to launch the Barbados 2022 Offshore Licensing Round on December 1, 2022,” said the minister of state in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Business, Sandra Husbands.
She told a three-day Energy Local Content Workshop and Share Fair that 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,” Husbands said, underscoring the importance of the energy sector.
She said it is key to transforming the Barbados economy and that it creates and facilitates possible investments, innovations, new industries, and jobs that are important to sustain economic growth.
“The new global economy is 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.”
“However, the ultimate goal is to ensure that the country’s transition from fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable energy sources is realized. This way, we can ensure that all Barbadians have access to energy that is reasonably priced, reliable, and sustainable,” she said.
Husbands said the government supports efforts to develop the capabilities and competitiveness of Barbadian manufacturers, service providers, suppliers of goods, and individuals, to enable them to participate more effectively in the emerging offshore oil and gas and renewable energy sectors’ value chain.
However, she noted that several barriers were identified by the government and the Commonwealth Secretariat as limiting the participation of local suppliers in the energy industry value-chain activities in Barbados.
Husbands said the government, with the assistance of the Commonwealth Secretariat, is seeking to address the challenges by strengthening the policy and regulatory framework for local content development and its oversight capacity.
“The Barbados Energy Local Content Project has registered rapid progress since its implementation in April 2022. Already, we have evidenced the benefits of the project as its implementation progresses in full force.
The Energy Local Content Share Fair ends on Wednesday.
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