This year’s June 4-7 fourth Suriname Energy, Oil & Gas Summit (SEOGS) concludes today(June 7), on a decidedly higher note than its predecessors. The event, hosted by the country’s state-run oil company Staatsolie, at Paramaribo’s Royal Torarica Hotel & Resort was held against a much more upbeat backdrop than its predecessors, the country now on the threshold of moving forward with its first offshore oil development, reportedly a US$9 billion pursuit, being undertaken by the French Company, Total Energies, which operates the country’s Block 58.
ExxonMobil Corporation, XOM, and Production Suriname, an affiliate of ExxonMobil, alongside Petronas Suriname E&P, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Petronas, have announced a significant hydrocarbon discovery in Block 52 offshore Suriname. This marks the third major find in the block since 2020, further confirming the potential of the Suriname-Guyana basin for substantial oil and gas reserves.
Guyana will now have to share the regional and international petro limelight with its neighbour in an environment that is likely to bring significant investment-related attention to the two south American countries, going forward, whereas, not many moons ago, the two were both, in terms of the state of their economies, numbered among the region’s basket cases. Overnight, SEOGAS has become the biggest energy and offshore event in the region, occupying some of the space on the global monitor which, not many moons ago, had been filled entirely by Guyana.
