Project assistance completion report[: St. Lucia geothermal]

Lucia. The project was co-sponsored by the Regional Development Office/Caribbean (RDO/C) and the UN Development Program's Revolving Fund for Natural Resources Exploration (UNRFNRE). Most targets were achieved, although only two of three planned geothermal wells were drilled, tested, and capped; the third was dropped due to budget constraints. The wells established for the first time both the certainty and the location of St. Lucia's geothermal resource. An agreement has since been signed between the Government of St. Lucia (GOSL) and LUCELEC, the national electric utility, to develop the geothermal field. Despite this generally successful outcome, the project was plagued by conflict, perhaps because RDO/C had had little experience in the management of such a project. (1) Due to a disagreement with the GOSL, the UNRFNRE project manager -- the project's overall leader and the primary force behind it -- was dismissed. Two successive contractors who replaced him were unable to address the various management difficulties that arose over the life of the project. RDO/C should have informed all parties when the project manager was dismissed that it would pull out of the project unless the dispute was resolved to its satisfaction. (2) There was confusion regarding the roles of the consultants to the project, an Italian firm appointed by UNRFNRE. The consultants acted with direct responsibility on several occasions, but no responsibility on others. (3) UNRFNRE also altered its role and duties midway through the drilling program. RDO/C should have insisted on a clear definition of roles at the beginning of the project, even if this caused conflict with UNRFNRE. (4) Another dispute concerned responsibility for carrying out infrastructural work (road realignment, construction of drilling pads, etc.) and for transporting the drilling rig and other equipment. UNRFNRE maintained that neither it nor its consultants had any obligation to do the work, leaving the GOSL solely responsible. RDO/C, realizing it had wrongly assumed that UNRFNRE would take charge of these matters, helped the GOSL solve the problem. In addition to the above, the specifications for the drilling program which developed for RDO/C by Los Alamos National Laboratory were sometimes vague. This was because Los Alamos was not fully knowledgeable about the type of geothermal drilling that was applicable to St. Lucia (e.g., wet well rather than dry well drilling). While RDO/C was able to solve this problem, it would have saved itself a good deal of trouble if it had paid more attention early on to practical matters.