Just days before ExxonMobil announced its eight oil discovery offshore Guyana, former Trinidad and Tobago Energy Minister, Kevin Ramnarine, told OilNOW he is of the view that Guyana is emerging as the senior partner in the basin shared with neighbouring Suriname.
“It seems that the Guyana-Suriname basin is more in Guyana, and less of the basin is in Suriname,” he said in an interview in Georgetown on June 13. Citing industry analyst Wood Mackenzie, the former Minister of Energy and Energy Affairs said, “Suriname has potential for about 1.5 billion barrels of oil. That’s a risked number so they have applied the global chance of success to the exploration wells that will be drilled in Suriname over the years. So it’s as though Guyana is emerging as the senior partner in this basin.”
With the more than 3.2 billion barrels of oil that had been discovered at the time Ramnarine spoke with OilNOW, he said, Guyana being the senior partner in the basin was somewhat obvious, although, “One does not like to predict the future. We always know that these things are subject to probabilities.” Since that time, ExxonMobil’s eight discovery has pushed the estimated recoverable reserves in Guyana to more than 3.7 billion barrels.
Ramnarine’s assertion that Guyana may be the senior partner in the basin means that significantly more oil may well be discovered offshore the South American country, where in the basin shared with Suriname, the US Geological Survey estimates that there could be 13.6 billion barrels of oil and 32 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
