By TERENCE MURRELL, Guardian News Desk

BPC Limited, the company which is exploring the potential of oil fields in the exclusive economic zone of The Bahamas, is hoping to begin its drilling operations by 2012, according to information contained in the company's prospectus.

With five license areas covering a total of 15,676 square kilometers, and backed by research and oil and gas data accumulated over a three-year period, gleaned from other oil companies, universities and research institutions, BPC is hoping that one of its 22 'leads' will yield hydrocarbons in exploitable volumes. Such a find would make the $2.44 million the company must pay the government over the next five years for the rental of its prospecting licenses, as well as $1.35 million for work obligations, very much worth it.

The Bahamas joins a small group of jurisdictions in the region attracting interest from oil companies intent on finding new sources of oil and gas. Barbados, for example, following the culmination of a border dispute with its neighbor Trinidad and Tobago, itself a major exporter of oil and gas, successfully tendered a number of open offshore blocks, their potential based on date garnered from offshore wells drilled by energy firm ConocoPhilips six years ago.

Rising crude oil prices on the international market make the prospect of local supply an attractive option. BPC, however, has yet to generate any seismic and other data of its own, and is yet to commence its own exploration efforts, for the time being basing the potential of the jurisdiction on data from other, previous sources. Local officials of BPC, when contacted by The Nassau Guardian, declined to comment on the company's plans to begin its own explorations. Its Bahamian representative Jerome Gomez did suggest earlier this year, however, that exploration would begin in the third quarter of this year.

According to information on the website contrarianprofits.com, the company has reportedly invited other oil companies to Colorado, to examine the data it has collected, looking to bring in partners on the project. BPC has spent the last few years accumulating all the available information on the oil and gas potential of the jurisdiction, which reportedly spans a period of 60 years. The website further noted that a lack of a central repository of data in The Bahamas, as well as the lack of a department to deal with license applications, hampered the firm's efforts.