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Who or what is Cahill Energy? Barbadians taxpayers want to know!
Who or what is Cahill Energy? Barbadians taxpayers want to know!

The following was submitted as a comment to the blog Cahill Energy: The Race to Waste Energy. BU along with other Barbadians taxpayers intend to exact our right to know by calling for transparency in all public sector transactions. We have an ineffective Auditor General, a defunct Public Accounts Committee therefore it is up to conscientious Barbadians to use other means available to demand what it right. The irony is that this government promised a new way of governance, more transparent by proclaiming integrity and freedom of information legislation, six years later we continue to wait – David (BU)

The website for this company [Cahhill Energy] can be found by following the LINK. The website does not give confidence in that it was constructed only recently in 2013 and appears to be currently under construction. No financial information or company profile is given on the website. A search was conducted on the company using the following link to the Guernsey companies registry:

https//www.greg.gg/webCompSearchDetails.aspx?id=iqwS70SvL4U=&r=0&crn=&cn=cahill&rad=StartsWith&ck=False
It showed that Blenheim Management Services is the owner of Cahill Energy see the link below:

http://www.greg.gg/webCompSearchDetails.aspx?id=sr8ft/nf5JY=&r=0&crn=&cn=blenheim%20Management%20Services&rad=StartsWith&ck=False

Blenheim has directors:

  • Alasdair Andrew Milroy
  • Linda Theresa Le Roux

From this search I was able to down load a number of company documents being the Memorandum of Incorporation which lists Lambeth Nominees Limited as the majority shareholder or beneficial owner of Blenheim.

https://www.greg.gg/webCompSearchDetails.aspx?id=Ez5boXIz64w=&r=0&crn=&cn=Lambeth%20Nominees%20Limited&rad=StartsWith&ck=False

The Directors of this company are listed as:

• Michael Underdown
• Peter Craggs Howe
• Linda Theresa Le Roux
• Judith Mary Lovell
• John Adam Robilliard
• Martyn Paul Gordon
These names will have to be screened to check that there is no negative media such as sanctions, money laundering, fraud, embezzlement, Politically Exposed Person, Bribery and corruption claims against them.

A major red flag is that the company Cahill Energy Limited is registered in Guernsey one of the offshore jurisdictions offers little transparency. In addition the complex ownership structure should be questioned to find out why there are so many layers.

We will need to verify where the physical place of business is located and verify that there is an operation there.

Full transparency is required in a deal of this nature.

We need to know:

  1. Who the beneficial owners and ultimate beneficial owners (the people) are behind this company so that all potential conflicts of interest can be assessed and ruled out etc.
  2. We must confirm that the beneficial owners/entities involved are not sanctioned individuals and are not Politically Exposed Persons who generally have a vulnerability to bribery and corruption.
  3. Ensure that there are no criminal connections.
  4. They must be able to demonstrate that they have examined and evidenced the management experience/track record of the directors and senior management of this company.
  5. What is their record of success in this sector? Where is the evidence?
  6. Evidence of (concrete) projects that have been successfully completed
  7. Most importantly where is the $240M coming from have we gained adequate assurance and examined the documentary evidence that the source of these funds is legitimate?
  8. Are we comfortable that there is no reputational/legal risk for Barbados from the acceptance of these funds and what did we do to gain this assurance?
  9. Who are the directors? Have they been screened as well as the beneficial owners for sanctions and illicit criminal connections?
  10. Have we visited Cahill Energy’s premises in Guernsey to ensure that it is really a physical office and not just a front?

AlterNRG owns 100% of Westinghouse Plasma Corporation, a world leader in plasma gasification technology, which is expected to supply the plasma gasification technology

http://www.alternrg.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/March-17-2014-Cahill-Energy-to-Invest-240-Million-in-Barbados-Clean-Energy-Plant.pdf
http://www.westinghouse-plasma.com/executive_team/

It would be interesting to find out if AlterNRG has actually done business with Cahill Energy before and who AlterNRG is and the same for Westinghouse Plasma Corporation. 7th Heaven Properties appointed to source site for Caribbean Clean Energy Plant. Who are they who are their beneficial owners?

We need to screen them for conflicts and inappropriate connections with Cahill Energy as they both seem to endorse each other.

Does the company really have a physical presence in London?

7th Heaven properties

51 Clarendon Walk

Notting Hill

London

W11 1SN

Do see the directors of 7th Heaven Real Estate at the below who were contracted by Cahill to find a Caribbean island to invest US$300M

http://www.7thheavenproperties.com/contacts.html


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124 responses to “Cahill Energy Transparency and Taxpayers RIGHT to Know”


  1. Well said Colonel
    ….and how about this nonsense of closing down schools every time there is a water shortage? Are these not the same damn schools that are listed as hurricane shelters?
    Perhaps authorities think that the BWA will be pumping normally during and after a hurricane….
    One would think that EACH school would be equipped with a basic storage tank….?
    Steupsss
    Shiite man!


  2. Good morning.
    I am glad to see that you have published our article on the solid waste/incineration plan for the Vancouver, BC area. It’s an important topic that deserves plenty of discussion and dissemination. We would appreciate an attribution for the story that you published. As the writer of this story, would you mind acknowledging The Vancouver Observer and providing a link to our site? Our website is http://www.vancouverobserver.com. Thank you.
    Mike Chisholm
    Sr. Reporter
    Vancouver, BC

  3. Due Diligence Avatar

    Anyone still interested in this topic, might find Patrick Hoyos’ recent column interesting

    THE HOYOS FILE: Half-billion-dollar ‘gasification’ of Barbados’ garbage

    BY PAT HOYOS | WED, MARCH 26, 2014 – 12:00 AM

    Unless you were involved in the alternative energy business prior to last week’s announcement by Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler about a “plasma gasification” plant in the offing for Barbados, you probably never heard of a company called AlterNRG until you saw it mentioned in a Press release put out by Cahill Energy last week.

    Cahill Energy has signed a contract with the Barbados Government “to build and operate a leading edge clean energy plant on the Caribbean island” at a cost of US$240 million.

    That’s half a billion Barbados dollars. But, on the bright side, these projects hardly ever overrun their budgets.

    I couldn’t find out much about Cahill Energy (one-page website), except that it is a subsidiary of Cahill International (also one-page website – who would have guessed?) but both are headed by Clare Cowan, who was pictured in a photo accompanying the statement.

    I got that impression from reading its company profile on ZoomInfo, which is a treat worthy of digestion, being so sweet. Cahill International, it notes, is a company comprising “prominent individuals whose backgrounds at the summit of statecraft and business facilitate entrée [sic] to major corporate opportunities around the world”.

    It is, you may like to know, also “a leader in mega project development”, coming up with “compelling” projects, for which it “develops a winning strategy” and “sources structured funding”. Anyway, back to the Press release. “Cahill Energy plans to utilise the most innovative technology available to transform all kinds of waste on Barbados into clean, renewable energy.” This is where AlterNRG comes in.
    “AlterNRG owns 100% of Westinghouse Plasma Corporation,” noted the release, “a world leader in plasma gasification technology, which is expected to supply the plasma gasification technology.” Westinghouse Plasma’s technology was already in use in six commercial facilities worldwide.
    Of those six sites, only one currently is geared to producing energy from household waste: the others are involved mainly in industrial and often hazardous waste conversion. One, by the way, stopped operating because they couldn’t find enough raw material for it. The one doing household waste is located in the northeast of England at Teesdale.

    It was purchased for US$21 million by US company Air Products, which plans to build four more like it in Britain, selling the energy to local electric companies. For that kind for money, they are getting a plant that will convert 950 tonnes per day of household waste into 50MW of electricity, according to the AlterNRG report.
    “The facility is expected to start commissioning in the first half of 2014 and will be the world’s largest plasma gasification facility by a significant margin,” it says (AlterNRG Financial Report Q3 2013, page 14).
    The one we are supposedly buying will have the capacity to take 650 tonnes of solid waste per day, said the Cahill PR. The whole project, including the gasification plant itself, is going to cost a quarter of a billion US dollars, to be repaid under a BOLT by Barbados taxpayers over 30 years.
    When is investment not investment? When it’s a BOLT. Then it’s a mortgage. Around our collective necks.

    BWA HQ. Marina. Cruise Terminal. Prison. And lots more to come, I bet. (Arthur wanted to do it with the flyovers.) Presumably the MW output of “our” gasification plant (see? I am learning to love my chains) will be one-third less than 50MW, since it will take one-third less tonnage per day. The rest, I guess, is for infrastructure.

    Do we produce that much garbage a day? And can we get it all into this overheated monster? All that is above my pay grade. Alas, despite doing all this good work saving the world from fossil fuels and landfills of garbage, AlterNRG isn’t making any money.
    Said the report: “The company continues to incur losses as it continues to build revenue and execute on its strategic plan. The accumulated deficit at September 30, 2013, was $111.9 million.” It just got another US$32 million in new investment.
    But, you know, it’s doubling down, focusing on building revenues from Westinghouse Plasma Technology “as projects progress into the construction phase”. The problem for a company like this, it notes, is that the “plasma gasification business consists of large dollar sales transactions that have a long-term sales cycle”.

    The report added that “large scale waste-to-energy facilities have inherent risks of delay or being cancelled (same report, p.21).

    Senator Darcy Boyce was quoted in the Cahill release as saying that “this waste-to-energy project is a major step to put Barbados firmly on the way to its initial target of replacing by 2029, 29 per cent of its oil-based electricity by generation from renewable and alternative energy. Indeed, this project will help Barbados significantly to reach this target ten years earlier than planned”.

    By the way, not to spoil a good thing, but could we be just getting too much of one? Remember the Barbados Sugar Industry Project? Under this one “an existing sugar factory” would undergo “re-engineering” so that it could produce sugar for export, molasses for alcohol, and electricity for the national grid. In his Budget speech last August, Mr Sinckler said funding had “been agreed with the Japanese Bank of International Corporation and Japanese commercial banks for up to US$270”.

    He added that “it is expected that this project will begin implementation in the first quarter of next year and run for three full years,” and would “radically reform sugar agriculture while having very positive spin-off effects on non-sugar crop production”. We are at the end of the quarter, so I guess that one has already got going, hasn’t it?

  4. Caswell Franklyn Avatar
    Caswell Franklyn

    I have read enough to be convinced that some local politician is going to become very rich out of this deal.

    >

  5. Kammie Holder Avatar

    Norfolk county councillors have opted to scrap a controversial £500 million energy-from-waste (EfW) contract with consortium Cory Wheelabrator after a day of protracted discussions (April 7).

    The cabinet voted unanimously to terminate the contract this afternoon following an earlier full council meeting, which saw councillors vote 48-30 in favour of scrapping the deal with one abstention.

    The proposed Willows power and recycling centre is now set to be scrapped by Norfolk county council
    The council’s decision to end the 25-year contract, originally signed in February 2012, means that the council now faces paying up to £30 million in compensation to the consortium, which said it was “extremely disappointed” with the outcome of today’s meetings.

    According to the council, the cost of terminating the contract is estimated to be £30.26m, comprising capped compensation to Cory Wheelabrator of £20.3m, contractor public inquiry costs of £1.6m and exchange rate and interest rate related costs of £8.36m.

    As recommended in a report to the council published last week (see letsrecycle.com story), the decision means the end of plans for the Willows EfW plant, which would have treated 268,000 tonnes per year of household waste from Norfolk but had met with fierce opposition over the cost of the project.

    The news comes while a final planning decision for the EfW facility is still awaited from communities secretary Eric Pickles, who called in the project for a public inquiry last year.

    Defra also pulled £169 million funding for the project in October 2013 (see letsrecycle.com story), and councillors were concerned that this and the continued delay on a decision from Mr Pickles was causing the project’s value for money to drop with rising costs and a shortened contract payback period.

    Htttp://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/councils/norfolk-to-scrap-ps500m-incinerator-contract


  6. what a jerk Pickles,,,,,,,what a waste of tax payers money,,,that fool ought to be fired for causing the taxpayers hundred of millions of dollar,,,a fat ignorant slob that PIckles

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/10745547/Row-over-Governments-infrastructure-credentials-as-Eric-Pickles-squashes-230m-Norfolk-project.html


  7. @Kammie

    Based on what Kellman said in parliament the plan is to import garbage?

  8. Adrian Loveridge Avatar
    Adrian Loveridge

    Former Senator and current BTA Yachting Consultant, Peter Gilkes took me to task and categorically denied that the proposed Cahill Engergy project is a BOLT (Build Operate Lease Transfer). I am still unclear about this. Can someone clarify this?


  9. July 8, 2014 in Daily Nation newspaper page 13 is a Cahill Energy advertisement “Open House invitation to the People of Barbados”. “Senior Management from Cahill Energy will share their perspectives on the new Waste-to-Energy- plant as well as launch the new Cahill Energy Limited Barbados Website.”
    “There will be a presentation which will be followed by a question and answer period. The Open House is open to all Citizens of Barbados.
    Date: Thursday July 10, 2014
    Time: 6:30pm to 8:00pm
    Location: St. Thomas Parish Church
    Arch Hall, St. Thomas


  10. Hope some of the BU “family” will be in attendance this afternoon.

  11. Sarah Venable Avatar

    Random points:
    1) These sites are informative: http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Clare-Cowan/25018534 and http://www.ventureexchangenetwork.com/.
    2) I think it’s right to question the deal, but not to get your undies in a bunch simply because large sums are involved. It’s called business.
    3) Nobody seems particularly impressed by the fact that the plant will significantly reduce waste that goes into landfill, which is a huge problem.
    4) No, I’m not an apologist for Cahill or the whole deal, just trying to take a balanced look.
    5) It’s a BOLT deal–Buy, Operate, Lease, Transfer. For 30 years. What happens then?
    6) The plant is expected to reduce waste fed into it by 85-90%, leaving 10-15% of material. Some of this is said to be “inert” gritty dust that can be used in construction. If it is truly harmless, doesn’t this present entrepreneurial opportunities for people here? (If they can get capitalised. Might Cahill be convinced that this would be a way to demonstrate the corporate citizenship they spoke of at the meeting?
    7) Not all of the remainder consists of this dust, but is highly toxic. It must be shipped out for “safe” disposal or containment somewhere. How will that be managed and paid for?


  12. The other key key concern for BU is the capacity of the plant. Cahill has advised it is currently gathering information to determine the quantum of waste generated by Barbados, one suspects the info will be used to determine the operating capacity of the plant, will Barbados be forced to import waste in the medium term?


  13. thirty or forty years from now if this project does not get off the ground,,there would still be the NAYSAYERS mouthing off asking the same rehash questions,,will the rest of the world move past us in savings of their engery bill while the govt (of that day) have to ask bajan taxpayers again) to foot a plant which would have quad triple in price …we often hear the mention of “thinking outside of the box” but for barbadians staying inside a closed box is all the y seem to know,, the rest of the world seems to understand that such a principle always work for the better,,, we are where we are because of a stale and stagnant mentality that dictates that we are better ,,and that we know it all..


  14. Ignorance surely knows no bounds.

    Barbadians are asking questions in an environment where the JA for a minister of the environment and others in government are silent and we the citizens are condemned for speaking out. In a healthy democracy it is the right of citizens to ask questions. Many of us ask similar questions when the Greenland landfill was being prepared and what?

    Bush Tea your Brass Bowls label is gaining currency for sure.

    On Saturday, 12 July 2014, Barbados Underground wrote:

    >


  15. and i repeat will remain in the same holding pattern fifty years from now asking the same questions unafraid to move forward and relying on outdated antiquated methods of keeping a system efficient and workable. the mistakes of the past should have made us wiser but instead a mentality of pondering and wishful thinking continues to permeate the minds of those who call themselves intelligent…


  16. The government comprised of 16 makes a decision to build a WTE plant in Barbados, a technology with is 10 years old and guess what the public should do, shut the hell up.

    JAs abound.

    On Saturday, 12 July 2014, Barbados Underground wrote:

    >


  17. makes me wonder..would we ever learn


  18. David re “what the public should do, shut the hell up?”

    Hell no. The worst thing we could do is be silent.

    The people of Barbados elected REPRESENTATIVES not tin pot Dictators.


  19. OUR region has been high-jacked by leaders who are verbose and oratorical procrastinators… They are essentially masters in the art of keeping pace with the day before yesterday and furthermore their productivity levels approaches zero on all days ending in Y…

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152589508687141&set=gm.679937592098817&type=1&theater


  20. Interesting story about Nevis building a waste to energy plant for 20 million USD.


  21. David WTE plants are viable solutions to Waste disposal management.

    The problem with every project in Barbados in the last 20 years is lack of transparency and the apparently “excessive cost of commissions/ finder’s fees/consultations.”.


  22. Thomas Sankara

    a 5% Closing Fee upon successful funding of a project, out of which a 1% referral fee is paid to the introducer, broker, or consultant.

    Gilles Herard, Jr. Merchant Banker | Waste-To-Energy Project Financing


  23. This is interesting.Just saw it on CBC Canada.

    http://www.bio-amber.com/

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