The companies that were successful in the recently concluded Suriname bid round are now to submit their exploration work programme the head of state oil company, Staatsolie Maatschappij Suriname N.V. told OilNOW.
Chevron Exploration Suriname Limited and a consortium consisting of TotalEnergies and Qatar Petroleum had submitted the most favourable bids for shallow offshore blocks. Chevron submitted a bid for Block 5 while the TotalEnergies consortium submitted bids for Blocks 6 and 8.
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Annand Jagesar, Managing Director of Staatsolie said the exploration work programme has to be submitted in a systematic manner that favours discoveries.
He was keen to note that Staatsolie and the successful bidders are now in the process of concluding Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs). Staatsolie’s maximum participation right in the PSCs is 40%, Jagesar pointed out. When asked whether Staatsolie will be auctioning off other oil blocks soon, he responded in the affirmative.
“In the mid and east shallow shore, an official bidding round will soon follow. Official bidding round only planned for the offshore,” he said.
A total of 10 bids were received for 3 of the 8 blocks that went on offer on November 16, 2020. These blocks are directly in the migration pathway between the giant onshore producing fields and the recent deepwater discoveries at Block 58, which are both typed to the Albian, Cenomanian & Turonian (ACT) source kitchen.
Staatsolie had said the bid acreage is considered underexplored. Of these wells, AKT-2, drilled near the shelf edge, had encountered a 205m interval of shows in the Santonian equivalent to the deep-water discoveries, and another 87m of shows in the Albian.
