France's TotalEnergies confirmed Friday it had with its partner Qatar Petroleum been awarded Block 6 and Block 8 in the Suriname SHO Bid Round 2020/2021.
TotalEnergies will operate the two shallow-water blocks, with depths between 30 meters and 50 meters, and located near the company's operated Block 58, where 4 significant discoveries have been made since January 2020 and where operations are continuing in 2021.
"With these two newly operated exploration blocks, TotalEnergies expands its position in Suriname, an emerging world-class basin," TotalEnergies said.
Total plans to conduct a 3D seismic acquisition campaign over the two offshore blocks to confirm their potential.
Kevin McLachlan, Senior Vice President Exploration: "This award demonstrates our ability to capture exploration acreage in a core area for TotalEnergies, pursuing our strategy of exploring for low development cost oil resources in highly prospective basins, particularly here, reinforcing our operatorship position in Suriname Block 58. “We are delighted to continue to expand our strategic international partnership with Qatar Petroleum on these blocks.”
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum, said, “We are pleased to be awarded exploration rights in blocks 6 and 8, and this represents Qatar Petroleum’s first entry into Suriname. This successful result also increases our presence in the Guyana-Suriname Basin and further strengthens Qatar Petroleum’s footprint in Latin America, marking yet another successful step towards realizing our international growth ambitions.”
Located in the southern part of offshore Suriname, close to the border with Guyana, the two blocks cover a combined area of approximately 2,750 square kilometers.
TotalEnergies will operate the blocks with a 40% working interest, alongside Qatar Petroleum (20%) and the national company Staatsolie (40%).
As previously reported, Suriname's national oil company Staatsolie said last Friday that, U.S. oil major Chevron and TotalEnergies and Qatar Petroleum JV submitted winning bids for shallow-water offshore acreage in Suriname,
In total Staatsolie had received a total of ten bids for three of the eight blocks which were on offer. The blocks are located in the west of the Shallow Offshore area, south of the recent deepwater discoveries made in Block 58, and northwest of the onshore producing fields.
Chevron filed the most favorable bid for Block 5, and, as already mentioned, the TotalEnergies and Qatar Petroleum joint venture for Block 6 and Block 8.