by Richard Coulson
Our second oil-related venture is Oban Energies, a very different animal. The Heads Of Agreement signed in February 2018 contemplated importing foreign crude oil to a Grand Bahamas facility where it would be stored, refined, and shipped to buyers in the US and elsewhere, an ambitious scheme projected to cost no less than $5 billion. This HOA soon had to be disavowed by our Government, at great embarrassment to Prime Minister Minnis. The Oban chairman and later its CEO were both quick to depart.
Nevertheless, Oban’s name continues to pop up run out of its Florida suitcase office in Palm Beach Gardens. A public meeting was held in Freeport last year, at which a recruited crowd of Bahamians spoke favorably, based on promises of employment in construction and subsequent operations. Meanwhile, the Bahamas National Trust expressed its implacable objection because of threatened environmental damage to several parks and nature preserves
A Government Committee headed by Labour Minister Dion Foulkes has continued to negotiate with a young man whom I have met named Alexander Grikitis, identified as Oban’s President & Managing Director. Mr. Grikitis makes periodic public statements about great progress in creating a new HOA and Environmental Impact Statement, and resolving business and financial issues, although we have not heard the results of any meetings, if actually held. The Oban website carries the names of qualified foreign experts with the ambiguous title of Senior Advisory Director, but these gentlemen have remained invisible.
Oban has never given the slightest hint about the identity of any company or investor backing its activity or paying its expenses, let alone providing or capable of borrowing the vast capital needed to build its project. These profound uncertainties precede any expectation about easing environmental concerns.
The 1983 James Bond film “Never Say Never Again” was partly shot in the Bahamas. Oban may now be facing a real-life Bahamian “never”.
First published in The Tribune, and is posted here with the kind permission of the author.
Mr. Coulson has had a long career in law, investment banking and private banking in New York, London, and Nassau, and now serves as director of several financial concerns and as a corporate financial consultant. He has recently released his autobiography, A Corkscrew Life: Adventures of a Travelling Financier.
