Suriname is on the cusp of a major oil boom! Are they the next Guyana?
All eyes are now on Suriname as the country is getting ready for some massive changes thanks to major oil and gas discoveries.
Exploration back in 2020 found oil and gas pockets off the country’s shores.
If you remember your primary school geography, then this shouldn’t be that surprising. Suriname shares a border with Guyana. The site where the first discovery was made actually sits just offshore in the Guyana-Suriname Basin. That’s close to where ExxonMobil and partners made very large discoveries in Guyana. So that general area is very oil-rich.
Right now, Suriname is where Guyana was a few years ago, at the very start of the process. Energy companies TotalEnergies and APA Corporation are investing US$10.5 billion to build Suriname’s first big offshore oil field.
And the work has already begun. Companies like Saipem, Technip Energies, and SBM Offshore won big pieces to build undersea pipes and the floating oil ship.
These early deals show the project is moving from plans to action. They plan to start pumping oil in 2028 and expect some 220,000 barrels of oil per day.
And of course, this is a big deal for Suriname. The country has a population of roughly 634,000 people and a GDP of US$17.5 billion in 2025, according to World Economics.
The IMF is predicting that the country’s GDP will grow around 55% in 2028 once pumping starts. That’s a big jump compared to the 2.5% growth in 2023.
Now the IMF noted that the oil reserves are not as large as Guyana’s, but being next to Guyana’s busy oil area is also helping to attract more interest to Suriname.
More companies are betting on Suriname and investing in exploring more sites. In June, Petronas, an energy company from Malaysia, signed a new deal with Suriname’s state oil company to explore a separate deepwater block.
Petronas, TotalEnergies and APA have also partnered to explore a third block, which is much closer to this first discovery. So, there could be more discoveries in the future.
Like I mentioned before, the first batch of oil is expected by 2028 and we’ll have to wait and see if more oil discoveries are made.
And that’s the bottom line.
