Tales of imminent oil finds are decades old. The week before last, President Michel and SEPEC’s chairman Guy Adam used an inspection of fuel storage facilities to once again trumpet the claim that important oil finds is just around the corner.
Ironically, such claims were also made in 1992 and even before. Prior to last year’s presidential poll, Michel claimed that there were strong indications that Seychelles was about to hit oil. “After that, dollars will flow” he said to boost his winning chances.
Such empty claims also came way back in 1992, when a British paper, “The Guardian” wrote that Seychelles can possibly join the rest of the oil moguls, if the search for oil proves fruitful. That was when Britain’s Enterprise Oil company was about to drill a test well in the waters of the archipelago. The Guardian wrote then that an output of only 1,200 barrels per day would be sufficient to supply Seychelles’ needs and that an oil find producing only one thousandth of Saudi oil output, would double Seychelles’ income from tourism.
In 1990, Texaco Oil and Ultramar Canada, carried out preliminary evaluations, but had no plans to drill. But the newspaper also said that the Seychelles Government will not give up that easily. It enacted generous legislation to bring in the foreign companies and remain convinced that oil can be found. The Bombay High Reservoir, which is about 1,400 miles away, is the nearest oil field to Seychelles.
Theories on tetronic plate movements under the sea brought scientists to the Indian Ocean in the early 1960s and they carried out the first surveys in the region.
Mr. Eddie Belle, SNOC (Seychelles National Oil Company) chief geologist said “it restarted as academic play” but the scientists were followed later by commercial concerns. Hopefully, the activities being carried now, including drilling, will prove to be more successful than “academic interest”