Barbados opens 2026 deepwater licensing round for 19 offshore blocks

The Mottley administration has launched the 2026 Offshore Petroleum Direct Negotiations programme, opening a structured licensing process for 19 ultra-deepwater blocks. Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Energy Kerrie Symmonds confirmed the three-month pre-qualification window opened June 1 and closes September 1, 2026, governed by the amended Offshore Petroleum Act. The number of blocks on offer was trimmed from 22 in the 2022 bid round to 19, with the remainder reserved for potential future development.

The licensing round arrives in the same window as Prime Minister Mottley’s third-consecutive 30–0 landslide election victory on February 11 and her June 4 meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Toronto, where Canada committed $170 million to the Clean Energy and Small Island Developing States Resilience Facility managed by the World Bank.

The diaspora reading: the petroleum tender is framed by the government as a structured negotiation with strengthened climate and environmental standards — a deliberate position by a country still publicly anchored to net-zero ambitions by 2035. The same administration is simultaneously deepening Canadian and World Bank climate-finance channels.

Source: Barbados Today Ministry of Energy release; Caribbean360 / caribbean360.com; Prime Minister of Canada readout June 4, 2026.