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There is a particular kind of national excitement that should worry us.

It arrives dressed as optimism. It speaks in the language of opportunity. It hints—just subtly enough—at wealth without sacrifice. Oil has that effect.

And if Jamaica is indeed on the cusp of a commercially viable offshore discovery, then now—precisely now—is the moment to resist that excitement. Because oil does not merely enrich. It rearranges. It rearranges economies. It rearranges politics. And, most dangerously, it rearranges moral expectations.

Let us begin with the first uncomfortable truth. Oil discovery is not wealth.

It is a decade of waiting. It is engineering, contracts, environmental approvals, offshore systems, financing structures, and negotiations conducted in rooms where mistakes are not forgiven—they are simply embedded. And here is where the first danger emerges. This is not a time for any hero minister. Not the clever one. Not the eloquent one. Not even the patriotic one. Because oil governance is not an act of brilliance. It is an act of systems discipline.

Countries that entrust their petroleum future to a single minister—however impressive—do not fail loudly. They fail quietly. Contracts are signed. Costs are accepted. Revenues are thinner than expected. And by the time the truth emerges, it is already too late. That is how billioneering happens. Not with scandal—but with structure.

Now let us introduce the second danger, one that sounds technical but lands brutally: Dutch disease. This is what happens when oil money begins to flow. Foreign exchange pours into the country. The currency strengthens. And suddenly, the farmer, the manufacturer, the exporter—all find themselves less competitive. The economy, slowly and almost politely, forgets how to produce.

Oil does not create this condition by accident. It creates it by dominance. And unless restrained—deliberately, institutionally—it will hollow out everything else. Norway understood this. It locked away much of its oil wealth in a sovereign fund. It refused to allow oil to become a drunken national habit. Others did not.

Now ask yourself, honestly:

• Which path feels more familiar to us?
• Which brings us to the central issue.
• Who will manage this?
• If your answer is “the Ministry”, you are already behind the curve.
• If your answer is “Cabinet”, you are still thinking too loosely.

Oil requires something far more disciplined: an integrated, multidisciplinary authority—a National Petroleum Delivery Authority. Call it NPDA. This is not bureaucratic inflation. It is national protection.

Because every serious petroleum decision requires five minds at once:

• the engineer
• the economist
• the lawyer
• the environmental scientist
• and the fiscal strategist

Without that integration, the State negotiates in fragments—and loses in full.

Take the Production Sharing Agreement. It sounds harmless enough. A contract. A sharing of oil. But inside it are the real levers of national fate:

• how costs are recovered
• how profits are split
• how disputes are settled
• how liabilities are assigned

A poorly negotiated PSA does not announce itself as a failure. It simply delivers less—year after year, quietly, permanently. That, too, is billioneering.

And then there is Petrojam. Ah, Petrojam—the reflexive centre of every oil conversation. But sentiment is not strategy. If Jamaica’s offshore crude is not suited to Petrojam’s configuration, then forcing that alignment may destroy value rather than create it. The correct question is not, “How do we feed Petrojam?” The correct question is, “How do we maximise national benefit?”

Sometimes the answer will include Petrojam. Sometimes it will not. That is what seriousness looks like. Which brings us, finally, to the real test.

Oil is not a gift. It is a test of whether Jamaica can resist its own worst habits:

• impatience
• centralised decision-making
• opacity
• and the quiet comfort of believing that someone else has it under control

Guardrails, then, are not pessimism. They are discipline. They are the difference between a country that discovers oil—and a country that understands what it has found.