10/9/21, 12:47 PM Haiti quake may have revealed oil reserves | The Seattle Times

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Nation & World

Haiti quake may have revealed oil reserves

Originally published January 26, 2010 at 10:15 pm
| Updated January 27, 2010 at 4:14 pm

The earthquake that killed more than 150,000 people in Haiti this month may have left clues to petroleum
reservoirs that could aid economic...

By Jim Polson

NEW YORK — The earthquake that killed more than 150,000 people in Haiti this month may have left clues to
petroleum reservoirs that could aid economic recovery in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, a geologist said.
The Jan. 12 earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist
who worked in the region for 30 years for companies including the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked
rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said Monday.
“A geologist, callous as it may seem, tracing that fault zone from Port-au-Prince to the border looking for gas and oil
seeps, may find a structure that hasn’t been drilled,” said Pierce, exploration manager at Zion Oil & Gas, a Dallas-
based company that’s drilling in Israel. “A discovery could significantly improve the country’s economy and
stimulate further exploration.”
Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive met Monday in Montreal with diplomats, including Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton, to discuss redevelopment initiatives. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon
said wind power may play a role in rebuilding the Caribbean nation, where forests have been denuded for lack of
fuel, the Canadian Press reported.
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10/9/21, 12:47 PM Haiti quake may have revealed oil reserves | The Seattle Times

“Haiti, from the standpoint of oil and gas exploration, is a lot less developed than the Dominican Republic,” Pierce
said. “One could do a lot more work there.”
The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. It may have 3 million barrels of oil in a shallow
offshore formation that’s probably also shared by Haiti, Pierce said.
“One of the main reasons for the dearth of information on reserves in Haiti is that the Dominican Republic has
numerous surface-hydrocarbon seeps while Haiti had very, very few,” he said.
Abraham Lincoln’s consul to the Dominican Republic reported oil seeps there in 1862. Neither nation produces oil or
gas. As much as 1 trillion cubic feet of gas may be trapped in a border formation near the earthquake fault, Pierce
said.
Pierce said he’s unaware of any petroleum geologists conducting fieldwork in Haiti. There has been exploration of
Ocoa Bay, the largest potential oil deposit in the Dominican Republic, he said.
The Greater Antilles, which includes Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and their offshore waters,
probably hold at least 142 million barrels of oil and 159 billion cubic feet of gas, according to a 2000 report by the U.S.
Geological Survey. Undiscovered amounts may be as high as 941 million barrels of oil and 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas,
according to the report.
Among nations in the northern Caribbean, Cuba and Jamaica have awarded offshore leases for oil and gas
development.

Jim Polson

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