If the prognosis provided by the United Kingdom oil company, United Oil Plc., currently engaged in oil search pursuits offshore Jamaica, turns out to be accurate, then the Caribbean could be on its way to significantly enhancing its profile as a global ‘petro power,’ a prospect that further raises hopes for the socio-economic standing of a region much of which is still regarded as impoverished or, at the very least, underdeveloped.
The likely reassessment of the region’s standing to global petro power lineup derives from the recent reported placing of a US$70 billion dollar estimate on the value of petroleum reserves “likely lying under Jamaica’s waters waiting to be tapped,” according to a report in the Thursday May 30th issue of the Jamaica Gleaner. “Were those numbers to be proved through further exploration and studies, the reserves would be comparable to the finds in Guyana,” the Gleaner quotes United Oil Plc. as saying, adding that the disclosure represents the company’s “latest pitch to prospective investors.”