by NEVILLE CLARKE and CARMEL HAYNES

SIMPSON OIL LTD (SOL) AND PETROCARIBE should be able to co-exist and arrive at a Caribbean solution to the escalating oil prices, says Stewart Gill, SOL’s regional director for the South Caribbean and Belize.

He offered this suggestion on Thursday during an interview with the Barbados SUNDAY SUN. {{more}}

“SOL is 100 per cent Caribbean. I would say that SOL has the best interest of the Caribbean at heart. If that is what Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has at heart, then there is no reason why there should be any incompatibility with him working with SOL,” he said.

On September 6, Venezuela signed agreements with Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname. Out of these, SOL operates in Belize, Dominica, Guyana,

St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname.

Commenting on the state-to-state restrictions under the PetroCaribe deal, Gill said: “We at SOL are of the opinion that there is an ideal and then there is a practical approach in the application of PetroCaribe, and that there is certainly a role for a company like SOL.

“I think some consideration should be given our pro-activity and willingness to co-operate,” he said.

Gill also suggested that if governments had to duplicate the infrastructure services provided by the existing “middle men” that would create “redundancies” that could “off-set a number of the benefits expected”.

“SOL has nowhere to go, this is our base. Unlike some of the multi-national oil companies that could choose to divest of their operations, or close them for that matter in the scale of things, this is our base and the strategic survival of our business depends on these countries,” he said.

The executive said that SOL expected within the next two to three weeks to meet with government representatives from each Caribbean country in which it operates that had signed on to PetroCaribe to get a firmer understanding of how they would operate in this new environment.

(Sunday Sun)