Shortly after the May 2000 coup a couple of Fijian friend of minds approached me to form an oil exploration company.

I rubbished the idea because I had been informed by a former Minister of Mines and Mineral Resources that when he was in office he had made enquiry and had been informed there were no worthwhile geological structures in Fiji worthy of  exploration for oil.

Quite frankly the information  given to me and the then Minister of Mines was incorrect .  It turns out that in 1993 there was a report completed for SOPAC and made available to Mineral Resources Department which indicated the existence of  geological structures in Fiji which have a high probability of bearing oil. 

The Rodd Report 

The report was written by Jonathon Rodd  who completed the work whilst engaged as Petroleum Coordinator at the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC), which is  based in Fiji.

The summary states:

Fiji forms part of the South-West Pacific island arc system which marks the boundary between the Indo-Australia and Pacific plates. The territorial waters cover almost 1.3 million km˛ and contain two shallow-water Tertiary sedimentary basins. Bligh Water Basin, covering some 9500 km˛, has sediment thicknesses in excess of 5km and has excellent potential for hydrocarbons. Bau Waters Basin is also prospective, having a shallow-water area of about 1600km˛, with sediment thicknesses up to 4km.

Fiji lies on the same regional play trend of Miocene reefs which produce oil in Irian Jaya, Indonesia and gas/condensate in offshore Papua New Guinea. Indeed Fiji's basins have many similarities with the oil and gas producing, arc-related basins of Southeast Asia.

Source rocks of Oligocene, Miocene and Pliocene age are exposed onshore in Fiji and have been encountered by drilling in the offshore basins. An oil seep in Bligh Water Basin and oil and gas shows in wells provide evidence that hydrocarbons have been generated in the basins. Modelling studies indicate peak oil generation to be at about 2.6km below sea floor.

Miocene and Pliocene reefal limestones from spectacular outcrops in Fiji and represent the best potential reservoirs. Reefs of the same age have been identified on seismic data from the offshore basins and represent attractive targets for exploration. Common forms are reefal mounds and prograded platforms.

Over twenty structural reefal traps have been identified on seismic lines in the Late Miocene and Pliocene sequences, mostly in Bligh Water Basin. Estimates of potential unrisked recoverable reserves are 270 million barrels of oil (mmbo) per structure. If structural-stratigraphic trapping occurs, recoverable reserves could increase to over 1 billion barrels of oil per structure. There is considerable scope for more reefal structures in the deeper Oligocene-Middle Miocene interval which cannot be resolved on the existing seismic data, and in areas where seismic coverage is sparse.

Limestone turbidite lobes have also been identified on seismic data. These constitute a secondary play and may contain estimated recoverable reserves of 100-200 mmbo per structure.

See The Rodd Report

In plain English this means that if the propective value of returns are sufficiently high then Fiji may expect interest in drilling for oil to be shown by oil exporation companies with good chances of an oil strike.

Oil Exploration Licenses

High Oil Prices have raised the viability of Petroleum Extraction in Fiji

In April 1993 when the Rodd Report was written the indication given was that no exploration or production licences had been issued.

The price of a crude has moved significantly upward since that date and one could expect that the oil companies might now be showing interest and of course that is the case.

On 22 September 2006 fijivillage carried the following news item:

Minister for Energy has confirmed that a new prospector, Southern Cross Management Company Limited has applied for a petroleum exploration license which is now being considered by the Mineral Department. Acting Director Mines Vijendra Prasad confirms that two companies have been issued the license earlier and Southern Cross, Once granted the license will be assigned to explore areas other areas, as the Bligh Waters and Lau waters are already assigned to the two existing companies. Prasad confirms that with the third prospector, most of Fiji's waters will be explored in the search of petroleum.

The report implies that the licences to explore Bligh Water and the Lau area have already been let.

Had it not been for fijivillage.com no one in in this country would have known.

As mentioned the  Rodd Report was produced in April 1993 but apparently was not made public.

We have it also that Ratu Mosese Volovola was never informed of its existence whilst he was Minister of Mineral Resources in the Chaudhary Government. 

The questions I put are:

1. Could it be that the accepted reasons for the George Speight coup of May 2000, namely harvesting of the mahogany forests were completely wide of the mark?
2. Was the real reason for the George Speight coup the high probability that there is oil is lying under Fiji's sea's waiting to be discovered ?
3. The Qarase Government clearly intended by means of the Qoliqoli bill to pass the ownership of the seabed from the State into the Native Land Trust Board system:  Was the high probability  of an oil discovery of oil the real reason for their refusal to budge from that position?
4. Was the Qarase Government in fact backed by an oil exploration consortium?

In Fiji we all know that under the Native Land Trust Board system – seabed would be treated as  “vei-kau”  That is the “oil rights” would be efectively vested in one or other of the chiefs and no-one else could benefit.