Guyanese Online

Rudolf Elias, CEO Staatsolie

Large amounts of associated natural gas discovered with oil off the coast of both Guyana and Suriname can play an important role in the transformation of these neighbouring countries that are now on track to develop their deepwater hydrocarbon resources.

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Rudolf Elias, Chief Executive Officer of Staatsolie, sees a lot of scope for cooperation.

“I think it is extremely important that Suriname and Guyana are looking for the strengths and weaknesses that we have in all sectors,” he said during a recent virtual panel discussion. “… one of the things we definitely need to work on is to bring all the associated gases … to somehow land it, so that we can take advantage of it and bring some cheap energy to our countries.”

In this context, discussions are already underway to divert gas from the Liza field in Guyana to the coast. The country’s Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, told OilNOW in a recent interview that the landing site for the pipeline and the infrastructure site will be set up so that the gas-to-power project would be completed by the end of the year, while work is expected to start in 2021.

About 9 trillion cubic feet of gas (1 cubic foot is 28.3 liters) has been found with the oil discovered off the coast of Guyana since 2015.

The UK-based global energy advisory group Wood Mackenzie had said that more than a trillion cubic feet of gas along with the oil in the Maka Central -1 was found off the coast of Suriname, earlier this year.

Even with the 9 billion barrels of oil equivalent found so far in the Stabroek block in Guyana and the three discoveries made so far off the coast of Suriname, the yet-to-be-discovered wells in the Guyana-Suriname basin are still estimated at billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.

The newly elected leaders of Suriname and Guyana met in August. They have pledged to pursue areas of cooperation that can accelerate the development of the two oil-producing countries.