The state-owned oil com­pa­ny, Staat­solie Maatschap­pij Suri­name NV has signed a pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tract (PSC) for off­shore Blocks 6 and 8 of the Suri­name coast with To­tal­En­er­gies Suri­name and the Qatar-owned , QatarEn­er­gy.

Staat­solie has a 40 per cent par­tic­i­pa­tion in Blocks 6 and 8 through its sub­sidiary Par­adise Oil Com­pa­ny NV.

The three com­pa­nies signed the Joint Op­er­at­ing Agree­ment (JOA) on Mon­day and as out­lined in the PSC, the ex­plo­ration pe­ri­od will last six years, with a first ex­plo­ration well to be drilled in the third or fourth year.

Blocks 6 and 8 are lo­cat­ed in the west of the Shal­low Off­shore (SHO) area, south of the re­cent deep­wa­ter dis­cov­er­ies at Block 58 and north of the main­land pro­duc­ing oil fields.

In 2021, the Shal­low Off­shore Bid Round 2020-2021 was com­plet­ed and Block 6 and Block 8 were al­lo­cat­ed to the two for­eign oil com­pa­nies. These two con­ces­sions are ad­ja­cent to Block 58 where To­tal­En­er­gies and Amer­i­can com­pa­ny Apache Cor­po­ra­tion have al­ready made sev­er­al large oil dis­cov­er­ies. In 2021, PSCs were signed with Chevron and Shell for Block 5 and Block 7. Ex­plo­ration ac­tiv­i­ties in these blocks are al­ready un­der­way and the first ex­plorato­ry well will be drilled in Block 5 in 2024.

Nat­ur­al Re­sources Min­is­ter, David Abi­amo­fo, who was present at the sign­ing, said that the gov­ern­ment has full con­fi­dence in the man­age­ment and su­per­vi­so­ry board of Staat­solie to make a sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try’s econ­o­my and the pros­per­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion.

He said the gov­ern­ment at­tach­es great im­por­tance to the use of lo­cal con­tent and that it “ will close­ly mon­i­tor lo­cal con­tent poli­cies”.

Par­adise Oil di­rec­tor, Rekha Bis­sumb­har, says he ex­pects suc­cess to be achieved ear­li­er than the six-year con­trac­tu­al agree­ment.

He said that the oil com­pa­nies al­ready have da­ta that was pur­chased from Staat­solie at an ear­li­er stage and that this in­for­ma­tion would be used as a ba­sis for more ex­ten­sive ex­plo­rations.

Staat­solie di­rec­tor An­nand Jage­sar said that the ex­plo­rations in Block 5 have pro­gressed sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly with the first ex­plo­ration well ex­pect­ed to be drilled next year.

He said that Block 6 and Block 8 are “be­low” Block 58, where lu­cra­tive oil re­serves have al­ready been found.

QatarEn­er­gy rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Ali Al Mana, said his com­pa­ny has been close­ly fol­low­ing de­vel­op­ments in the oil sec­tor in Suri­name and is there­fore look­ing for­ward to the ex­plo­rations to­geth­er with part­ner To­tal­En­er­gies.

PARA­MARI­BO, Suri­name, May 9, CMC

CMC/ic/ir/2023