 of Belizeans are classified as living in poverty. But more than three years after taking office, the trust fund is yet to be established and all oil revenues – estimated at $120 million – are absorbed by the government for its day to day operations. The government claims that crushing debts has forced it to channel oil revenues into government coffers and is hoping for new oil finds to be able to help meet election promises.
In the wake of the BP Gulf of Mexico Oil spill, a movement has started in Belize to ban offshore drilling. Led by environmental organizations and civil society, the movement has questioned the government’s decision to allow oil drilling in the sensitive Barrier Reef World Heritage Site zone.
Update April 2013: The Supreme Court has declared null and void all offshore oil exploration contracts issued by the government of Belize.
History of Oil Exploration In Belize
Little is officially known about the history of oil exploration in Belize.
A local newspaper recently reproduced an old interview with a Belizean Mr. Compton Fairweather who was involved in the early search for oil.
The esteemed and highly knowledgeable Compton Fairweather, CBE, published at least two articles in June 2006 issues of The Reporter, where he discussed his employment with Gulf Oil Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the business of oil exploration in British Honduras. Personally, I only have the second of these articles, and I will quote some of Mr. Compton’s revelations and opinions in that article.
“My duties with Gulf were to assist and be trained by senior geologist, Dr. Giovanni Flores, on Italian geologist employed by the company. We explored every river bank, highway excavation, quarry, cave, sink hole and outcrop we could find between the Sarstoon and the Rio Hondo Rivers, taking samples from the sedimentary rock strata.”
“Yes! We did find oil (called ‘shows’ in the industry) at two locations. The best quality was found at the Galvez ranch between San Ignacio and Benque Viejo, now known as Clarissa Falls. The other was at the Western Highway and Belmopan junction, now known as the Agriculture Show Grounds. Even today, almost anyone can break the right rock and if lucky can fill a jar with oozing crude oil.”
“As I have indicated earlier, the Southeastern Mexico oil find which was producing 235,000 barrels of oil per day brought Mexico’s daily output to 635,000 barrels per day by the end of 1974, and it is part of the same Cretaceous zone we were exploring in the Yalbac area in the mid 1950′s. It is my honest belief that when Belize achieves an oil bonanza it will be in the Yalbac area.”
– Compton Fairweather
Editor’s Note: Mr. Fairweather errs in his location of the Belmopan oil find. The oil show was actually about half a mile from the Belmopan junction, on the road north from the Hummingbird leading into the WASA facility. As Chief Information Officer of Belize I personally visited this well and was shown (and collected samples from) oil flowing after a valve was opened by Belize Department of Geology officials.
Mr. Fairweather refers to an area “..now known as Clarissa Falls”. The area was actually known as Clarissa Falls well over a century before Mr. Fairweather was born. Clarissa Falls was given its name in the 18th century by the great Belize-Irish patriot Thomas Paslow in honor of his wife Clarissa Paslow nee Carter a Creole (Afro-English). Thomas Paslow was active in the Public Meeting (the first form of government in the then British Honduras settlement), the great debate over Evacuation in 1797, the Battle of St. George’s Caye in 1798 and in defying British Army Superintendents for some 22 years.
– M.A Romero – Managing Director Belize.com Ltd.
Update: Mr C. Fairweather is right to point out that an oil seep was found near the Belmopan Agricultural how Grounds close to where the old bridge over the Roaring Creek used to be (and downstream from present day bridge). A well was drilled by Gulf Oil-Bahamas Exploration on the National Agriculture and Trade Show Grounds itself. Mr Flores, Mr Fairweather, Mr