And while the government is going village to village to consult the Maya Land Tenure Policy, they've also gone to six different villages to host consultations for oil exploration. With the FPIC in place, GOB was required to ensure that all villagers understood and agreed with the seismic testing. And after over a year of negotiations, the sixth village, Conejo Creek, finally signed on today. According to the Minister, the process is lengthy but necessary. But for their chairman of the village, well, he would've preferred if it was a little easier.
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"I think there were people in the government who were pretty excited in the beginning, but because the process took this long, the excitement has kind of worn off because the actual FPIC process started in earnest and in October of 2022, that's 15 months ago. And some people got impatient, I believe. But ultimately, you have to take your time with it. You have to be meticulous about it. You have to share with the communities as much information as you
possibly can and answer all your questions. So it took some time for us to get here. But I think that that's the idea. The idea is to ensure that once the communities sign up, once they agree, it's at the end of a process of education. And so then a process of understanding and ultimately not everybody will agree. But I think that, my sense is most of the community agreed to this, and that's why the leaders are here at this time. And to start this process. Now having signed this, it opens up the opportunity for seismic testing. And our hope is that ultimately that will need to discover in oil in commercial quantities."
"And that's the great challenge. That's a sacrosanct duty that we have and responsibility to ensure that once oil is discovered, that it's not just a handful of people that are going to win, but that the entirety of this nation, the people of the South in particular, but the people of the country in general benefit from this."
Santiago Coy, Chairman, Conejo Creek
"It was given to us by the villagers to sign the contract agreement because we know it took a long time, about 12 months ago, because we are following FPIC but we were meeting every time, every time nothing was going on, time was delaying and dry season was coming and the alcalde gave me a position to lead this so I tried my best to lead. It was not for me, it was for my community, it is benefits for them so I try my best to deal with it so I'm happy that we're here to sign the consent agreement with my leaders."
"It took a lot of time to follow the FPIC protocol but we tried to deal with it but because it took so long for us it was an issue but slowly but we know we did a sure thing."
So now the government can get started in five of those villages, and today the consultant for US Capital Energy told us what that work will look like.
Dan Gutierrez, Consultant, US CAP
"The communities have been clamoring to get the project going because they understand very clearly that this means jobs for them, for their families. So quite to the contrary, it is not the communities who we have partnered with that have been stalling that it would be unfair to see. It would just be a long, lengthy process."
"We can only start in the villages that we have gotten consent from."
Reporter:
"What will that work look like?"
Dan Gutierrez, Consultant, US CAP
"Preliminarily, it is seismic acquisition. Seismic acquisition is the process of using sound waves to explore the subsurface of the earth. So that's the first thing that we do. We we undertake a project that deals with seismic acquisition, which is, you know, a few months in the making. And after that seismic acquisition and that information is processed, then you look at any drilling prospects that may exist, may or may not exist, you look at that."
"The current program only asks for three exploration wells. That is what is written in stone as for now. Can that change? Of course. We would hope that no more than one well is necessary to prove commercial oil and gas. Once that happens, of course, then you go into post of exploration, which is more of a production process, and that is very different. And we have to enter into negotiations with the communities anew because that would be very different."
Santa Ana is the only village left to sign the agreement.
