OFFICIALLY he’s retired, but Dr Raymond Wright, 65, former head of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ), the energy company he helped create three decades ago, is so much of an institution there that he’s at his old office every day.

He had barely left the building on December 31, last year, when he was rehired by PCJ as a consultant to oversee what could be the company’s biggest project to date – the search for oil and gas off Jamaica’s south coast.

It is undeniable that Wright, a geologist, has earned his retirement – he’s authored two books and published over 120 academic papers, a highly unusual accomplishment, especially since he has spent his entire career in industry and virtually no time in academia.

“Maybe in large measure if I were to review my life I have been a frustrated academic. That’s probably the best way to describe it,” says Wright, who in May was co-recipient of the first Caricom Science Award, in recognition of his contribution to scientific research in Jamaica.

He has certainly earned his retirement, but has no plans to slow down. It’s simple. Raymond Wright loves what he does.

“I sure do … work is my hobby. Until I retired, I worked days, nights, weekends … I work all the time,” he confessed in an interview with the Sunday Observer at his office on Trafalgar Road in New Kingston.

Across the room, his personal assistant, Gina-Lee Lawrence, nods vigorously in agreement.

Wright’s work habits are notorious among PCJ employees.

He’s been absorbed with geology, he recalls, since he was a boy growing up in Southfield, in rural St Elizabeth. Before he even reached high school, he says, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life.

“When I was 10, I read a book in the Penguin series called Geology in the Service of Man, and I became fascinated with the subject. I decided then and there that I wanted to be a geologist.”

That fascination propelled him to be the first student at his high school – Clarendon College – to earn an A+ in the Advanced Level examination in geology, which was offered for the first time in Jamaica that year.

“At the time I was in lower sixth form, and I got a distinction and a letter of commendation from Cambridge University,” said Wright.

But when he completed high school, there was no geology programme at the University of the West Indies, so for the only time in his career, Wright took a job unrelated to his interest for the income to finance his studies abroad.

“I worked in a bank,” he revealed dourly.

That career move was short-lived, and in 1960, the recipient of a government scholarship, Wright travelled to the United Kingdom, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology and micro-palaeontology from the University of Durham and University College of London, respectively.

On his return to Jamaica in 1964, he worked for the government, studying and surveying Jamaica’s ground water.

“I was doing hydrogeology, although my real interest at that time was in what is known as the White Limestone Group, which is a group of rocks that cover about 70 per cent of Jamaica,” he said.

His fascination with the limestone rocks led to a research masters, again from the University College of London, and later a doctorate from Stanford University in California, United States.

Intensely private, Wright reluctantly discloses personal details. He married Carmen in 1968, and they have a son, Matthew, who is a vice president of Citigroup in New Kingston.

Following his studies, Wright returned to a government job in Kingston, but by the 1970s, something else caught his attention.

“In 1973, when oil prices were raised suddenly, it became apparent to me and to others that we needed to set up a state company to cope with the security of supply going forward,” said Wright, who was among a group that proposed the PCJ in 1975.

Energy supply and its attendant issues, he then realised, would be of major concern to Jamaican governments of the future.

“At the time, as well, I had developed a bee in my bonnet about needing to find out if there was any oil in Jamaica and the only way to do it was to create a state entity to deal with that.”

In 1979, when the PCJ was formed, its mandate was to ensure that Jamaica received a stable supply of oil and to explore domestic oil potential. Under Wright’s supervision, the company entered into oil exploration, and drilled three prospect wells onshore and deepened an existing well off the south coast.

“I would have preferred at that time to have drilled offshore wells, because I believed then – and believe now – that the potential for finding oil and gas rests offshore. The problem was at the time that I did not have the capital; the money to drill offshore wells,” he said.

In the anticipation that if they found oil onshore investors would be attracted to Jamaica’s offshore oil potential, the PCJ drilled the three wells at a cost of about $18 million.

They all turned up dry.

That, however, has not dampened Wright’s conviction that there is oil, or, for that matter, his resolve to find it.

“We had a number of leads, but that did not allow us to test the offshore areas properly. So, whereas nine wells have now been drilled onshore Jamaica, with about four of them showing oil and gas shows, only two wells have been drilled offshore Jamaica, and the potential for large structures that may accumulate oil are really offshore Jamaica,” he said.

“In other words, onshore you’re likely to find mice, offshore you could find small elephants.”

But even as determined as he is to find oil in Jamaica, Wright is under no illusions that an oil find will be the single solution to Jamaica’s growing energy woes.

As a scientist, he is acutely aware of how unsustainable fossil fuels are, and has made research into renewable energy sources a central part of his life’s research.

At the time he authored his second book, Jamaica’s Energy, Old Prospect, New Resources, he was the first head of a petroleum company to publish a book on renewable energy, and in recognition of his efforts, in 2002 he was honoured as a ‘Pioneer in Renewable Energy’ at the World Renewable Energy Conference in Cologne, Germany.

Wright’s first book, Biostratigraphy of Jamaica, was a collaboration with Professor Edward Robinson.

Most of his efforts can be seen in some form through the work now being done by the PCJ.

“We decided about 15 years ago that renewables were the way to go, and in that time we’ve constructed hydropower stations, we’ve gone into solar technology, into promoting solar energy, and importantly, we’ve built a wind farm,” said Wright, referring to Wigton, a 20.7 Megawatt windfarm in Manchester.

Jamaica, in 2005, consumed 27.3 million barrels of oil – 3.2 million more than it did five years ago in 2001 – and had a record energy bill of US$1.5 billion.

Now, as the PCJ pursues biofuels as an alternate source of energy, Wright says he’s optimistic about the prospects for ethanol.

“Ethanol, in my view, is the most important of thrusts towards renewables that Jamaica can take at this particular time,” said the energy expert, adding that the country could instantly save about US$4 million ($260 million) per year it spends on the importation of MTBE, an octane enhancer.

“It can allow us to start using 10 per cent of our own gasolene from Jamaican sources, and it will revive a dying sugar industry and create new employment.”

But while Jamaica, led by the PCJ, has started to take baby steps toward diversifying its energy sources, Wright still is concerned that it hasn’t yet resonated among the private sector and the society in general that energy issues are critical matters for debate and action.

Everybody needs to step up, he says.

“For the last 20 years, we have been promoting energy efficiency and conservation, but we’ve noticed that we’ve had very little effect on the Jamaican population in terms of a response,” said the PCJ consultant. “Jamaicans have North American tastes, and we use energy so inefficiently that our manufacturing sector has not been able to compete.”

Conservation and efficient energy usage are not things government can regulate or mandate, but something which individuals and the manufacturing sectors have to pursue.

“I think we’ve really catalysed the importance of energy, but we have not got the response yet from the private sector that we had hoped. We would like to see private investors involved in energy projects, and the growth of the sector is going to be dependent, not on a government corporation like the PCJ, but on the private sector to bring investment funds into this particular area of our development.”

The future, he said, also lies in trying to shape the behaviour of school children, and in the training of a new generation of geologists to continue the work he’s done in research into renewables and in oil and gas exploration.

“I’d like to see a new generation of geologists come forward, and in the next year or two, certainly with the exploration activities now underway, I would like to see two or three geologists trained who are going to be the finders of oil,” said Wright.

He plans to stick with the PCJ, he says, as long as he’s needed. Or, until they find oil. “Maybe it won’t be found in my time, but maybe it will in theirs,” he added with conviction.

“Geology is really the fundamental science, its the science of the earth and the globe and what the earth is all about. Geology is the source, the vehicle and the avenue to all the natural resources that occur on earth, whether they be mineral resources, whether they be energy resources,” he said.

“It all comes from geological work. And minerals, metals and fuels are what drives the world’s economy, so geology is involved in everything.”

campbello@jamaicaobserver.com