Oil drilling platform. Photo courtesy Fircroft.
PARAMARIBO--For the third time this year an oil company has reported a significant oil discovery offshore Suriname. Oil producer Apache Corp and its joint venture partner Total SA said on Wednesday they discovered what one brokerage has dubbed “among the most anticipated oil finds in the world.”
The oil find was at the Kwaskwasi-1 well, a 1.4-million-acre area in Suriname’s territorial waters. Apache and Total each hold a 50 per cent working interest in the operation, with the US producer as the operator. The find has since sent Apache’s shares up 14 per cent in after-market trading. “This is the best well we’ve drilled in the basin to date, with the highest net pay in the best quality reservoirs,” said Apache Chief Executive Officer John Christmann.
This oil discovery follows the discovery at the Maka Central-1 well in January by France-based Total S.A. and the discovery in April at the Sapakara West-1 well, also by Houston, Texas-headquartered Apache Corporation. Suriname’s state oil company Staatsolie has been entering into production-sharing agreements since 2004, with multinationals who have been showing interest in prospects off the South American coast. The Suriname operations are just across the border from where Exxon Mobil led discoveries off Guyana that are estimated to hold more than eight billion barrels of oil.
The third discovery also comes at a time when oil and gas producers across the globe are reeling under a coronavirus-led decline in energy demand that led crude prices to drop below $0 for the first time ever.
Oil multinational Britse Tullow Oil has meanwhile announced that it is set to start drilling in a fourth deep sea well – the Goliathberg-Voltzberg North prospect – offshore Suriname, in the first quarter of next year.
