An investigative look at the billion-barrel prospect off Jamaica’s south coast, the foreign companies holding the keys, and what the island nation stands to gain — or lose.
For almost eight decades, Jamaica has been searching for oil. Fishermen along the south coast have long reported slicks rising from the deep — dismissed for years as cruise ship waste, later confirmed as natural seeps from something far more significant beneath the seabed. Now, in 2026, the hunt is closer than ever to an answer.
A UK-based exploration company called United Oil & Gas holds the exclusive rights to what could be one of the Caribbean’s most consequential energy discoveries: the Walton-Morant licence, a 22,400-square-kilometre block of ocean floor stretching south of Jamaica’s central coast. Independent evaluations have estimated the block could contain up to 2.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil — with some projections reaching as high as 7 billion barrels. For a country whose entire GDP hovers around $17 billion, a commercial find of that scale wouldn’t just change the economy. It would rewrite Jamaica’s future.
But the question hanging over this story isn’t just whether the oil is there. It’s who will benefit when — or if — it comes out of the ground.
A Century of Looking, A Decade of Progress
Jamaica’s oil exploration history stretches back to the 1950s, when early prospectors drilled onshore wells that came up short. The modern chapter began in 2010, when Canada’s Sagres Energy acquired offshore exploration rights but exited within two years, unable to secure a drilling partner. In 2014, Tullow Oil — a major UK-listed explorer — stepped in and signed a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ), the state entity that manages the country’s petroleum resources.
Tullow invested heavily. It commissioned a 3D seismic survey in 2018 that industry observers called a breakthrough in imaging quality, revealing multiple promising geological structures beneath the Walton and Morant basins. But global disruptions — the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict destabilising loan markets, and a broader downturn in frontier exploration investment — pushed Tullow to exit in 2020.
United Oil & Gas, which had been Tullow’s 20% junior partner, picked up the full 100% working interest. The small firm, founded by former Tullow staff and listed on London’s AIM exchange, has since been the sole operator on what may be Jamaica’s most valuable untapped asset.
The Evidence Builds
In early 2025, Energy Minister Daryl Vaz confirmed that United had completed a surface geochemical survey of the Walton-Morant area. The results were cautiously encouraging: the analysis detected the presence of C4 and C5 hydrocarbons — butanes and pentanes — in select seabed samples. These are considered positive indicators of an active petroleum system below.
By June 2025, Jamaica’s National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) had granted United two critical approvals: an environmental permit for exploration activity and a beach licence for seafloor surveying. The company is now preparing to conduct piston core sampling — extracting cylindrical sediment cores from hundreds of metres below the seabed to test directly for oil residue.
Every historical well drilled in Jamaica’s offshore waters has shown some level of hydrocarbon indicators. Geochemical analysis has confirmed the presence of oil-generating source rocks similar to those in other successful Caribbean basins — including Guyana, where ExxonMobil’s discoveries have transformed a small South American nation into one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. The geological parallels are hard to ignore.
The Deal Jamaica Signed — But Hasn’t Shown the Public
At the centre of the arrangement is the Production Sharing Agreement between United Oil & Gas and the Jamaican government. Under typical PSA structures, the exploring company bears all the upfront financial risk. If nothing is found, the company absorbs the loss. If oil is discovered, the company recoups its costs first, and then production revenue is split between the company and the host government according to pre-agreed terms.
Jamaica’s Energy Minister has confirmed that the government has not spent any of its own money on exploration — United and its predecessors have invested an estimated US$39 million to date. But the critical question is what happens next. If oil is found in commercial quantities, the PSA dictates how billions of dollars in revenue would be divided.
The terms of that agreement have never been made public.
This lack of transparency has drawn criticism from Jamaican commentators and opposition figures. In a country where the IMF-imposed austerity of the 2013 Extended Fund Facility is still fresh in public memory — years of wage freezes, tax hikes, and deep spending cuts — the prospect of a massive natural resource being developed under opaque terms is a sensitive issue. Jamaica has seen what happens when the benefits of its own assets flow disproportionately offshore. Bauxite, tourism, and sugar — the island’s historical pillars — have all, at various points, been dominated by foreign capital with limited local benefit.
The Ghosts of Structural Adjustment
Jamaica’s relationship with foreign economic interests runs deep. The 2013 IMF programme required the country to maintain punishing primary budget surpluses of over 7% of GDP for six consecutive years. It mandated tax reform, public sector wage freezes, pension restructuring, and — critically — the expansion of public-private partnerships and privatisation of state assets.
Under those conditions, Jamaica’s airports, highways, and port facilities were progressively placed under foreign management through concession agreements. Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay has been operated by a Canadian-led consortium since 2003. The North-South Highway was built through a Chinese-financed toll road concession. The Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston was concessioned in 2019.
Parallel to the IMF programme, Jamaica relied heavily on Venezuela’s PetroCaribe arrangement for affordable oil — a lifeline that one analysis estimated was more significant to Jamaica’s debt reduction than the IMF programme itself, contributing a full 10 percentage points to the debt-to-GDP decline when the PetroCaribe debt was bought back at a steep discount in 2015.
Against this backdrop, the offshore oil question carries enormous symbolic weight. For Jamaicans, the prospect of finally having a sovereign natural resource of global significance raises an uncomfortable but essential question: will this be different?
What’s at Stake
The numbers, if they hold, are staggering. The Walton-Morant licence’s estimated 2.4 billion barrels of recoverable resources, at even conservative long-term oil prices, would represent tens of billions of dollars over a 25-year production life. United Oil & Gas itself has cited a potential net present value of approximately $23 billion at its 100% working interest.
But United is a small company. It held just £6.4 million in net assets as of mid-2024. It cannot drill alone. The company has been actively seeking a “farm-in” partner — a major oil company willing to invest the roughly US$30 million needed for an initial exploration well, and potentially billions more for development if oil is confirmed. Several parties are reportedly under non-disclosure agreements, and the company has described “recent positive interest.”
The identity of that eventual partner — whether it’s a supermajor like ExxonMobil, Shell, or TotalEnergies, or a large independent — will shape the trajectory of Jamaica’s oil future. The terms negotiated in the farm-in, layered on top of the still-secret PSA with the Jamaican government, will determine how much of this potential windfall actually reaches Jamaican public coffers.
The Clock Is Ticking
The Walton-Morant licence, as currently extended, runs until January 31, 2026. If United cannot secure a drilling partner and begin operations by then, it risks losing the licence — unless the Jamaican government grants yet another extension. The company has already received multiple extensions since the original PSA was signed.
Meanwhile, Jamaica has set a target of sourcing 30% of its energy from renewables by 2030, and the global energy transition raises questions about the long-term viability of new Caribbean oil production. But for a country still grappling with high energy costs, persistent poverty, and the legacy of decades of debt, the lure of hydrocarbon wealth is powerful.
The piston core samples are expected to be collected and analysed in the coming months. If they confirm what the seeps, the seismic data, and the geochemical surveys have all suggested — that there is an active petroleum system beneath Jamaica’s southern waters — the next phase will move quickly. And the decisions made in boardrooms in London, and behind closed doors in Kingston, will determine whether Jamaica’s oil becomes the foundation of a new era of prosperity, or another chapter in the long story of an island’s wealth being extracted by others.
This article is based on publicly available reports, government statements, corporate filings, and international media coverage as of April 2025. The terms of the Production Sharing Agreement between the Government of Jamaica and United Oil & Gas have not been publicly disclosed.
