The Caribbean has been long associated with white sand beaches and ecstatic vacationers. The relaxed vacation holiday spots have been associated with tax havens for the wealthy, bio-diversity, and restricted commodity-based agriculture.
However, in recent years, Caribbean nations such as Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, and Barbados have made significant crude oil and natural gas discoveries.
It can alter how the world views the Caribbean, its importance in global markets, and its relationship with climate change negotiations.
The Orinoco river, most of the islands, and the country of Guyana share the same undersea shelf geologically. The same Ornico river flows through Venezuela and whose basin has been a source of dense Maya crude to Venezuela for centuries.
While the reserves in Venezuela have not diminished due to years of mismanagement and lack of technical know-how, have driven Venezuela into a situation where harvesting the vast quantities of crude oil that they have in their midst has become difficult.
Most geologists believe that most Caribbean islands and continental Caribbean countries could potentially have crude oil and natural gas deposits due to the same plate.
Earlier, Trinidad and Tobago has also been considered an oil-rich country, but now they are also suffering from a depletion in oil reserves that are surviving on natural gas.
Since 2015, Guyana has announced twenty-two commercial oil finds in its territorial seas, putting them on the top of the crude oil lottery. Similar discoveries have been made in Jamaica, Suriname and Barbados, and they have had positive results in the traces of crude oil and natural gas around these countries.
As the Caribbean’s oil and gas industry grows, the region’s relations with environmental protection and climate change negotiations is likely to shift dramatically.
The Caribbean is a climate-sensitive region whose long-term survival is predicated on the rest of the globe, considerably lowering carbon emissions.
At the same time, recent oil finds will allow the Caribbean to increase its GDP in the near future significantly. (Associates Times)
