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CENTRAL AMERICA
Cacti
Brief history of the country
The Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis is a Commonwealth realm in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. It lies northwest of Montserrat and west of Antigua and Barbuda. The largest island is St. Kitts, divided from Nevis by a shallow channel called The Narrows.
The islands were inhabited by Kalinago people when Columbus landed in 1493. In 1538, French Huguenots established a settlement, soon destroyed by the Spanish but from 1623 new English and French settlements were created and by 1626 the indigenous people had been wiped out.
Spain failed to recover control and Saint Kitts became a joint base from where neighbouring islands were settled. France finally ceded all of St. Kitts to the UK in 1713. Nevis had been governed as a separate state but was unified, as was Anguilla, in the 1890s.
The island grouping became an associated state in 1967. Anguilla returned to British rule in 1971, finally seceding in 1980. St. Kitts and Nevis achieved full independence from the UK in 1983.
The economy of the islands is now dominated by tourism, diversified agriculture and light manufacturing.
Oil and gas summary
The islands are of volcanic origin made up of volcanics and limestones surrounded by oceanic crust of the Caribbean Sea.
The central peaks are covered in tropical rainforest and steep slopes that are mostly uninhabited. The terrain flattens out at the coast.
This geology is not suitable for the generation and accumulation of commercial volumes of oil and gas and there are no identified indigenous oil or gas resources, either onshore or offshore.
Globalshift believes St. Kitts and Nevis will not achieve any production in the future. They have no history of production and no exploration wells have ever been drilled on the islands or offshore.
ST. KITTS AND NEVIS
Map and National Flag
Central America
Capital
Population
Land area (sq kms)
Oil prod (000s b/d)
Gas prod (bcm/yr)
Oil cons (000s b/d)
Gas cons (bcm/yr)
Basseterre
0.05 mm
261
None
None
1.7
None
Government
Saint Kitts and Nevis is a sovereign, democratic and federal state with the UK monarch as head of state, represented by a Governor-General.
The Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party of the House. It has a unicameral legislature, known as the National Assembly, comprising 11 elected members and 3 appointed Senators.
There is no government department specifically responsible for oil and gas.