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Today the Minister with responsibility for Petroleum Joy Grant commented on the oil show. Speaking with the media at a private sector forum in Dangriga she said there is measured optimism:

Hon. Joy Grant - Minister of Energy, Science and Technology, and Public Utilities
"Well first, we're very excited about what we found over the weekend, which was an encouraging oil show. We continue to do the tests. They're several different phases in exploratory work. They start with the sizing, and then they go to exploratory wells and then to production. So, we are at the point now where we're continuing at the end of phase 1, and hopefully within the next 4 days or so, we will know whether we'll go into the second phase which will then determine unequivocally that this is a commercial find. As you can imagine the ministry, we want to be very sure that when we say anything to the Belizean public that it's based on the facts on the ground. So our staff, they've been there 24 hours since we got the show, and we will report very quickly to the Belizean public as we get more information. But we continue to be encouraged."

As we mentioned earlier in the week, tax revenue from the Spanish Lookout oil field has been steadily dwindling as that field is expected to be depleted within the next six years. Under the terms of the BNE Production Sharing Agreement, Government's has gotten roughly one quarter of the gross export value. 60% of that comes from income tax, 16% from government's working interest and 24% from royalties.

But that agreement was worked out before anyone knew Belize had oil. The agreement Marenco worked out with government is more favorable to government - since it was negotiated in 2011. While she couldn't recite the terms offhand, Minister Grant said - if there is oil, greater benefits will accrue to Belize...

Hon. Joy Grant
"These are under new terms than we had with the previous company, so it's going to be much more beneficial to the Belizean public. You know, we have things like taxes and royalties, and when you add all that up, it will - it is really a substantial part of what the company earns that will come to Belizean public."

We'll have more from the Southern Private Sector Forum later on in the news.