ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, August 5, 2026 — Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell says the Government gave Global Petroleum Group (GPG) every reasonable opportunity to honor its contractual obligations before terminating its petroleum agreements, insisting Grenada “waited, engaged, reviewed” and ultimately “ran out of patience” after 18 years without production or accountability.

Addressing a special news conference on Wednesday, Mitchell defended his administration’s decision to revoke GPG’s Development License and Production Sharing Agreement, rejecting claims that the Government acted hastily or unfairly.

“We waited, we engaged, we reviewed, and Grenada is now acting responsibly,” Mitchell said, adding that the Government had “painstakingly gone over this matter over the last several years.”

“We are not going to wait another 18 years,” he declared.

Mitchell said that after taking office in 2022, his administration established a Hydrocarbon Technical Working Group to examine GPG’s performance and determine whether the company had fulfilled its contractual obligations. The review, he said, found that GPG failed to complete its minimum work program, failed to produce an acceptable development plan, and failed to demonstrate that it had the financial resources needed to undertake the proposed offshore development.

The Prime Minister rejected GPG’s recent claims that the Government ignored the company.

“GPG has already publicly claimed that it has had no communication with this Government. That is simply false,” he said, promising that records of the Technical Working Group’s engagements would be made public.

Technical Working Group Chairman Nazim Burke said the Government met directly with GPG in September 2023 after the company began sending letters claiming it was ready to invest US$350 million.

“We asked them to provide some of the information which they said they would, and they never did,” Burke said, adding that the Government spent months searching locally and overseas for key petroleum documents that were not readily available.

He also disputed GPG’s assertion that the Government failed to establish the necessary regulatory framework, arguing that the company never submitted a development plan meeting the contractual requirements.

“The truth is we never got a development plan from GPG,” he said.

Responding to GPG’s legal challenge and threat of arbitration, Mitchell said the Government had anticipated such a move but remained confident in its legal position.

“Arbitration is just one method of resolving a dispute,” he said. “It is still perfectly open for them to sit with us, for us to talk, to amicably part ways, or for them to demonstrate that they have credible partners who can do what they are contractually obligated to do.”

Mitchell said the termination was intended to restore investor confidence rather than undermine it, arguing that credible investors had been deterred by years of uncertainty surrounding the project.

“We deserve better partners, better agreements, better relationships and, importantly, actual results,” he said. “Eighteen years is long enough.”