Guyana-Suriname Basin
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The United States Geologic Survey ranks the Guyana-Suriname Basin as the 2nd most prospective, underexplored offshore oil basin with an estimated 13.6 billion barrels of oil and 32 trillion cubic feet of natural gas yet to be discovered. The basin is home to an impressive roster of the leading exploration companies including Super Majors like ExxonMobil and Chevron; National Oil Companies (NOCs) like Repsol and Statoil; and smaller companies with successful track records developing the Atlantic Margin offshore West Africa including Kosmos Energy and Tullow Oil.
Owing to its prospectivity, the availability of open acreage not controlled by NOCs and the success of the drilling programs on the African side of the Atlantic Margin, the Guyana-Suriname Basin is slated to see ten wells drilled offshore through 2016. The companies involved have committed up to $2 billion to these exploration wells. It’s also important to note that the potential of the Guyana-Suriname Basin is just now being fully recognized. For example, there are thousands of wells lining the coast of West Africa from exploration projects from Mauritania to Namibia as well as the prolific producers in the Gulf of Guinea including Nigeria, Angola and now Ghana. In comparison, including the wells to be drilled in the coming two years, there will be less than 50 wells drilled offshore in the Guyana-Suriname Basin. So this is truly an emerging play. And with the focus of world-class explorers on the basin, it’s just a matter of time before a major commercial discovery is announced. Exploration companies, including JHI, are excited about the similarities in the geology of the Guyana-Suriname Basin to the Tano Basin offshore Ghana. The Tano Basin is home to several of the most significant offshore discoveries in the last decade including Jubilee which is currently producing 100,000 bopd on its way to 120,000 bopd once gas handling facilities are finalized in early 2015 and the TEN (Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme) field which is projected to produce 80,000 bopd once fully onstream in 2016. The discovery and development of both these fields has been led by Kosmos Energy and Tullow Oil, both of whom are prominently placed in the Guyana-Suriname Basin. The Turbidite sandstones which have yielded prolific production offshore Ghana are also present in the Guyana-Suriname Basin as evidenced by wells which had oil shows in that formation drilled by Shell (Abary) and Repsol (Jaguar-1) as well as Tullow’s discovery, Zaedyus-1, of ~700 MM bbl offshore French Guiana. JHI is excited to be part of the group of leading explorers seeking to unlock the world-class potential of the Guyana-Suriname Basin. |
USGS World Petroleum Resources Project
Assessment of Undiscovered Conventional Oil and Gas Resources of South America and the Caribbean, 2012 
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