Staatsolie, which is Suriname’s state-owned oil company, has begun talks with ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies about combining gas fields around the Suriname–Guyana maritime border as part of a joint venture.
ExxonMobil, the maker of the Mobil DTE hydraulic oil, currently has plans for six oil-oriented projects in Guyana to develop the 11 billion barrels of recoverable hydrocarbon resources it has discovered so far. Nevertheless, it has also discovered two fields that comprise mostly natural gas and gas condensate. While gas tends to be less lucrative than crude oil, combining these with nearby fields discovered by APA Corp and TotalEnergies offshore of Suriname could make a joint project economically viable.
Speaking in Houston in an interview at the CERAWEeek energy conference, Annand Jagesar, the Managing Director of Staatsolie, said:
“We’ve been talking to Total. They don’t see an opportunity to make a feasible project as of yet from Maka and Kwaskwasi [two discoveries TotalEnergies made off the coast of Suriname]. Joining the Guyana and Suriname explorations, our projects, we can make that scale.”
Jagesar talked about the Equatorial Margin, which is a belt of gas and oil reserves ranging offshore from Guyana to Brazil. He said Guyana has the best reservoir, while Suriname’s seems to be more about gas. He also said Petronas, the state-owned oil company of Malaysia, and ExxonMobil have agreed to perform appraisals and tests in Block 52, with Petronas potentially interested in a liquefied natural gas project if sufficient discoveries are made.
