Local and regional anticipation ahead of neighbouring Suriname’s long-anticipated major oil recovery breakthrough is likely to heighten significantly against the backdrop of the country’s June 19-22 four-day Suriname Energy Oil & Gas Summit (SEOGS). What is being regarded as something of an unexpected delay in the blossoming of the Dutch-speaking Republic’s oil and gas industry is likely to enhance the significance of the forum for the administration of the country’s President Chan Santoki.
The programme for the four-day event, according to information emanating from Paramaribo, the country’s capital, will focus on both oil and gas-related technical fora as well as workshops & roundtables programmes. Paramaribo will be seeking to draw maximum relevant international attention to the forum, parading it as an indication of “exciting times” ahead. The ‘tone’ of the forum, one feels, will seek to signal the country’s optimism that its long-confirmed significant offshore hydrocarbon finds will finally metamorphose into investment-driven opportunities that will transform the country’s economy. Mindful that the forum serves to further optimize investor interest in the country as a whole, the organizers are seeing what is being described as a strategic summit, a significant attention-getter for “commercially minded companies looking to capitalize on investment, development, and project opportunities” in what, these days, is widely regarded as one of the world’s “oil & gas hot spots.
As has been the case with the successive international oil and gas fora staged in Guyana over the past few years, Suriname, reportedly, will be seeing next month’s platform as a forum at which locals and visitors, both within and without the sphere of oil and gas, can go into ‘huddles’ to discuss business and investment issues located within the broader range of opportunities they repose in the Suriname economy. Suriname, one feels, will be hoping that next month’s gathering in Paramaribo will be the last event of its kind prior to the country being in a position to announce, along with its international partners, the commencement of major oil recovery targeting what have long been confirmed as some of its significant oil deposits. Such a development will further position what, up until recently, had been a decidedly low-profile corner of South America, to become one further recognized as a favoured destination in the hemisphere.
The most recent assessment of the current state of Suriname’s economy can perhaps be culled from the report on the visit to Paramaribo earlier this month by a team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Report alluded to the country’s “slow post-pandemic (economic) recovery,” and “the shock of higher commodity and food prices in the second half of 2022 on the Suriname’s import-dependent economy.” The Fund’s report also alluded to “significant pre-existing policy challenges and eroded performance under the programme,” asserting that the country’s economic environment remained “fragile, with rapid exchange rate depreciation and high inflation imposing a heavy burden on the society.” All the more reason why Suriname’s oil ‘miracle’ couldn’t happen too soon for a country that has known no more than modest economic growth over the years.
To say that Suriname’s forthcoming ‘energy summit will be, in various respects, a significant forum in the context of the both the economic and political development of the country, is to indulge in considerable understatement. In recent months small pockets of public protest that have led to modest outbreaks of violence have occurred partially on account of public concern over the state of the country’s economy. What has also transpired in recent times has been something of a public demonstration of improved relations between Suriname and Guyana, a circumstance that has arisen largely out of a mutual recognition by both countries that given their projected improved economic situations, there are opportunities for enhanced bilateral relations along a trajectory that could well reduce what, all too frequently, have been the rumbustious flare-ups over the Corentyne fishing in the river controversy.
One assessment of the potential of this month’s oil and gas forum for positive outcomes asserts that the event also offers “a wealth of content for commercially minded companies looking to capitalize on investment, development, and project opportunities in one of the world’s oil & gas hot spots while the exhibition provides the perfect platform for internationals to meet with local partners and buyers to meet with suppliers.”
