Staatsolie Hydrocarbon Institute NV (SHI), a wholly owned subsidiary of national oil company Staatsolie Maatschappij Suriname NV, began the 2023-24 shallow offshore bid round (SHO2) for 11 new blocks in Suriname.
The blocks are in the nearshore-to-shallow areas covering 34,520 sq km in water depths up to 150 m. The blocks are south of deepwater discoveries and north of onshore producing oilfields. Some areas have never been previously licensed.
Regional studies by Staatsole confirmed the maturity and generative capacity of the Lower Cretaceous Aptian source rocks to charge the shallow offshore acreage in addition to the proven Albian, Cenomanian, Turonian, and Coniacian (ACT+C) kitchen deep offshore. This study derisked the SHO2 acreage by no longer relying on its recharge purely by long-range migration from the ACT+C source.
Independent new prospect mapping of both the new and existing data has defined a total of 90 leads and prospects in the 11 blocks on offer which have an estimated combined stock tank oil in place (STOIIP) of over 90 billion bbl.
The bid round was launched on Nov. 7, 2023, with commencement of the bidder authorization process. The data room will open from Dec. 18 with bids required by May 31, 2024.
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).