In a television interview, Belize Natural Energy spokesperson Sheila McCaffrey, said:

"Yes indeed we are confident that we do have a commercial discovery in Belize of the oil find we have made in Spanish Lookout. We have operationally drilling on the ground since the early days of June 2005, and we have drilled three wells and completed those and have those three wells in production at the moment. A fourth well is underway and will be completed within the next week. Roughly the three wells are producing about 2,000 barrels of high quality, between 39 and 41 degree APIs, light sweet crude oil for the last 90 days so that's really good news for everyone and its really good now to be able to make the announcement that this looks there is a commercial discovery.

"This is an important discovery, there is no doubt about that, for the country. First of all we have the capacity of making the country self-sufficient on energy but I think we must keep it in context in terms of a global oil find, its still relatively a small amount of oil. We believe there are crude reserves at this moment in time of 44 million barrels of oil of which we hope to recover 35% of that which would be normal oil field practice and based on that, that is significant to the country. But do I think it's going to significantly change everything about the world oil prices, no its not. This is a drop in the ocean of the amount of oil that is required and this complete discovery will be used in a matter of minutes because the world is reliant on billions of barrels of oil every single day."

For his part, Hon. John Briceno spoke out on the development of the oil industry in Belize:

"Belizeans rightly ask how will this industry be developed, will it be owned and controlled by a few, will the benefits be enjoyed by only multi-national companies, what will happen to the revenue that comes to government, how much revenue will be earned. These and many other questions are all legitimate and require full and frank responses. This government believes that any response on the development of the petroleum, industry must has as its starting premise, the following principles and I quote: 'the entire property in and control of all petroleum and accompanying substances in whatever physical state located on the territory of Belize in which rights of exploration and exploitation are exercisable by Belize are vested exclusively in the government and people of Belize.' This provision of the Petroleum Act vests all oil in Belize exclusively in the government of Belize for and on behalf of the people. Oil is natural patrimony, oil in Belize belongs to the people of Belize. That Madam Speaker is a fundamental premise upon which we must develop the oil industry in Belize. The creed of the PUP also states that it is the sacred duty of the government to intervene actively in the economic life of the nation where necessary in order to secure a better life for all Belizeans.