With the start of offshore oil production just a few years away, Suriname’s President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons is focusing on ensuring citizens and local companies benefit.
She told Newsweek in a recent interview: “Surinamese people and Surinamese companies need to participate in everything that [oil] will bring. Otherwise, some people will get rich, and my people will stay poor and that’s not what we want.”
The offshore project GranMorgu in Suriname’s Block 58 is expected to produce around 220,000 barrels per day starting in 2028. In addition, Suriname is pursuing exploration across additional deepwater blocks: a production-sharing contract was signed this year for Block 66 with PETRONAS, granting the Malaysian company 80% and the state-owned Staatsolie Maatschappij Suriname a 20% stake. The block lies in 1,000–2,200 meters of water depth.
President Geerlings-Simons noted that the country will need skilled labor from abroad but stressed the importance of building local capacity.
“We are investing in education because we want as many of our own people to be able to fill in certain jobs…by 2029, we should have people to fill in jobs and get also the jobs, the spin off jobs, not only the jobs in the oil sector,” she said.
The Head of State added that Suriname plans to enact local-content legislation to ensure Surinamese workers and companies are included.
As neighboring Guyana has already implemented local-content legislation, Geerlings-Simons said her government is “looking not only at Guyana, but other countries as well”.
She said this context matters, given the large influx of foreign workers expected in the offshore sector.
