KINGSTON, Jamaica — Petroleum of Corporation (PCJ) says that tests carried out by two separate independent laboratories have confirmed an oil seep identified in 2018 as the island’s third live oil-seep.

 PCJ said that while the seep offers no commercial prospects, the discovery strengthens the emerging data which shows that Jamaica has a working petroleum system which is generating and expelling hydrocarbons to the surface.

The discovery of this seep has moved the number of confirmed hydrocarbon seeps from one gas seep to a total of five oil-and-gas seeps both on and offshore in 2019, PCJ said in a statement today.    

The country’s most well-known gas seep, the Windsor Gas seep, has been gently bubbling since the 1900’s, PCJ said, adding that in partnership with CGG GeoConsulting it found two live oil seeps onshore in 2016. 

Following this, the first offshore live oil seep was discovered by Tullow Oil in February 2017; and then recently, the PCJ identified an additional live oil seep on-shore with the assistance of a citizen who contacted the Corporation (in 2018) to investigate an “oily substance” found on her farm.

 “The PCJ intends to continue its quest for new oil seeps in order to refine and update the evolution of its geological origins, the potential geological impact of the deposition of older sediments reworked into rock strata and the subsequent timing of petroleum generated from such rocks,” PCJ’s Oil and Gas Manager, Brian Richardson was quoted as saying.