Globally, authoritative oil and gas media intelligence continues to play up the increasingly important role that Guyana and Suriname can play in supplying Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) to the international community at a time when environmental concerns linked to climate change continue to realize an increasingly global vocal preference for gas from coal, which, if effected, is believed to likely reduce greenhouse gas by as much as half. A November 4 Reuters energy report cites what it says is the combined ability of Guyana and Suriname to supply 12 million tonnes of LNG annually at “competitive prices”. According to Reuters, the globally authoritative energy source, Wood McKenzie, positions the two CARICOM member countries to assume influential spaces in the global energy supply pecking order.
The crucial issue here, the Reuters report says, goes beyond the availability of the natural gas, but extends to the fact that Guyana’s offshore Haimara cluster and Suriname’s offshore Block 52, together, are estimated to hold 13 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of discovered non-associated gas which can be accessed and marketed at affordable prices. The value in the liquid natural gas deposits, the Reuters report says, reposes in the fact that demand for the commodity is expected to grow by the end of the decade as energy consuming sectors move to, incrementally, put coal behind them as part of a more aggressive push to reduce gas emissions by as much as half.
Having already drawn attention to themselves over the past decade on account of their oil discoveries led by ExxonMobil in the instance of Guyana and the French company TOTAL in the case of Suriname, the two previously low-profiled countries now attract sustained attention in the global energy sector, first, on account of their world class finds and more recently, following the revelation of their potentially lucrative LNG oil fields.
