Suriname's Staatsolie Hydrocarbon Institute (SHI) has this week announced the launch of a competitive bid round for six new oil and gas exploration blocks.
The blocks are located in the currently sparsely explored Demerara acreage of Suriname. The blocks are located east of the country's recent offshore discoveries and sit in water depths varying from 400 to 3500 meters.
The data room containing data and information on the open acreage opens on November 28, 2022, and will close to new bidders on April 28, 2023, with bids to be submitted by May 31, 2023.
Oil and gas intelligence firm Welligence Energy Analytics said in a social media post that the Suriname bidding round would compete with the recently announced Guyana round, both taking place in the first half of 2023.
Welligence Energy Analytics said: "The offered blocks are located 100km northeast of “golden lane” where TotalEnergies and Apache Corporation made several discoveries in Block 58 but have recently delayed its FID due to reservoir complexity (lack of correlation between the seismic results and the well data).
Currently, only four wells (GVN01 in 2021, A2-1 in 1978, ANA-1A in 2018 and ARA-1 in 2017) have been drilled in the offered blocks, all of which resulted in oil shows. Recent studies identified 60 prospects with unrisked resources of 41 billion bbl of oil and 30 Tcf of gas. This round is likely to attract primarily existing players in the Guyana-Suriname Basin."