Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today Inc.
by Vincent “Boo” Nurse
Barbadians continue to excel across the world in many fields of endeavour. They have reached levels of excellence after emerging from the most humble of backgrounds.
Forty years ago, Ken Goring walked across the rural plains of Marchfield and Ruby, St Philip, and inwardly thought about what secrets might be stored beneath the barren lands of his district.
He determined that one day he would explore the land in an effort to satisfy his curiosities.
Today, Ken Goring, the son of Charles Clairmonte (aka Monty) and Marlene Yvonne Goring (nee Greaves), a former secondary school teacher at the Princess Margaret School, is an accomplished and established geologist/scientist who has spent 20 years searching and drilling for oil and gas across many regions of the globe.
Ken was born in 1972. He received his early education at St Catherine and Holy Trinity Junior Schools before entering Harrison College in 1983. He remained at College until he reached the sixth form and later moved to the Barbados Community College before completing his tertiary education at UWI (Mona). He recalls that he enjoyed his experiences at Mona and obtained an honours degree in Geology and Geography.
The high level of his academic achievements formed the basis for many career options: he could have moved faceless into the island’s civil service or could have secured a job for life as a teacher like his mother. His choice of career suggested that he was finished with academia. Those dreams of exploring the world shone brightly above him.
Ken returned to Barbados, joined the Ministry of Energy and pursued a special interest in the benefits of renewable energy.
A short spell at Barbados National Oil Company was followed by an appointment at the Barbados Water Authority as Hydrogeologist where he supervised the sector which drilled for water on the island.
However, the Marchfield man soon realised that his ambitions could not be fulfilled with the qualifications he then held.
He won a scholarship and studied successfully for his master’s degree in Hydrogeology at Tuebingen, Southern Germany, and his dreams were now taking shape.
The world had become his oyster and the days of peering ambitiously from his chattel dwelling in Marchfield seemed longtime ago.
In 2002 Ken was offered a post at Shell Oil Company. He was assigned to the oil-rich region of Aberdeen, Scotland, where he worked as production geologist on the oil rigs in the rugged and unfriendly waters of the North Sea.
The challenges of life on an oil rig must have been many and I asked Ken about his experiences. “I found it to be very exciting and fulfilling both physically and intellectually. Oil exploration is comparable in some ways to medicine. To get to the final product there must be a process to find, refine and distribute for the general benefit of mankind,” he said.
I was now lost as I tried to understand the intricacies of the occupation of our Barbadian scientist. My knowledge only is that when I put the nozzle to the tank the gas gushes out.
Patiently, Ken explained: “We the need the seismic data of every geophysical technique and may drill to ten kilometres.” I exclaimed: ‘Wow, impossible, surely the belly of our planet is not that deep’.
Ken’s main role is to make an assessment of resources and how to get them out of the earth. He said: “The matter of commercial viability is paramount in all operations, and frankly, to get it wrong is not an option.”
After Aberdeen Ken was posted in turn to Malaysia, Australia, and Qatar. However, a spell in the oil town Miri, Sarawak, the birthplace of the Malayan petroleum industry and situated near the jungle was more exciting than otherwise he might have expected. He said he did not expect to meet the occasional crocodile firsthand.
Ken moved to England in 2017 and now works with the oil giant Petronas. He said the production rate of this company can reach 1 million barrels of crude end oil in a day (one barrel is equivalent to approximately 36 gallons.)
And I suggested, there must be great pressures and responsibilities that go with the job. Ken responded: “I feel a great responsibility for the lives of the men who work on the rigs.
The possibility of a catastrophic event such as the blow up in 2010 at Macondo in the Gulf of Mexico when eleven lives were lost is always on my mind. We have to protect lives as well as the environment. This is a major and constant concern.”
For decades, the Middle East has been known as the main region for oil production and refinery. So, in view of the current excitement in the Caribbean region about prospects for oil, I asked our scientist for an overview of the position there. Ken said: “The situation in Guyana and Suriname
is very exciting.
The area is now the hotbed for oil production. The region has probably surpassed the Middle East as major producers and is becoming the emerging giant. The current estimate is that 8 billion barrels have been discovered by Exxon Mobil.”
Given the geophysical proximity of Barbados to Guyana and Suriname, I wondered whether or not there could be scope for further exploration in this area that might be of benefit to Barbados. Ken added: “Exploration is a very expensive process. It could cost US$100 million to drill one well and I wonder if there are companies currently interested in exploring the region for oil and gas. I am guardedly optimistic about our future in this market.”
Ken is married to Nami, a law lecturer at one of London’s universities. They have two sons, Deen and Ross and a daughter, Gabriella.
Whoever said that dreams don’t come true should speak to our man from Marchfield.
Vincent “Boo” Nurse is a Barbadian living in London who is a retired land Revenue Manager, Pensions and Investment Adviser. He is passionate about the development of his island home and disapora.
