Staatsolie Hydrocarbon Institute

We are the custodians of the oil and gas sector in Suriname

Staatsolie Hydrocarbon Institute N.V. (SHI) embodies the institutional role of Staatsolie Maatschappij Suriname N.V. (Staatsolie), creating the right conditions for investments and supervises the hydrocarbon activities by independent oil companies in Suriname, in order to optimize the value from petroleum activities for Suriname.

Initially Staatsolie was established in 1980 as a state vehicle to execute the Government’s oil policy. That policy stipulates that foreign oil companies can only explore for and eventually produce oil through service contracts with Staatsolie.

The first task was to monitor the operations of Gulf Oil that had an agreement to execute petroleum operations offshore Suriname. At the same time our first CEO, Eddie Jharap took the action to exploit the oil accumulations in Saramacca, onshore Suriname. And it is this policy that has stood the test of time, enabling Staatsolie to gain extensive knowledge and experience through the decades, becoming a top quartile operator both in terms of exploitation and cost efficiency.

By the year 2000, with growing interest in the offshore of Suriname, the strategic decision was taken to also develop the regulator's role which led to the set-up of the Petroleum Contracts division. The anticipation of an imminent significant hydrocarbon discovery prompted the need to further progress the development of this role for the now burgeoning oil and gas industry in Suriname.

This eventually led to the establishment of a separate subsidiary, Staatsolie Hydrocarbon Institute N.V. (SHI) in 2020.

Our Vision
To become a world-class hydrocarbon institute for the sustainable development of the petroleum industry in Suriname.

Our Mission
Maximize the economic benefit for Suriname by regulating, influencing and promoting the sustainable development of the hydrocarbon industry in adherence to world-class standards and practices.

Our Values
We share the core values of our parent company Staatsolie.

HSEC FOCUSED
We put health and safety first, strive for zero harm to our people and the communities around us, and minimize negative impacts upon the environment.
INTEGRITY
We are honest and do what we say we will do.
PEOPLE FOCUSED
We create a supportive and collaborative environment, respect each other, are open to other’s ideas and facilitate personal and professional growth.
EXCELLENCE
We set high standards for quality, strive to exceed expectations and do our work with a sense of urgency.
ACCOUNTABILITY
We accept responsibility for our job and actions, are co-operative, and create a non-blaming environment.

Within the embodiment of the institutional task of Staatsolie, our core tasks are:

Production Sharing Contract Management
Contract management includes negotiating the terms and conditions in Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) and ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions, as well as documenting and agreeing on any changes or amendments that may arise during the implementation or execution. The contract management process is all for the purpose of monitoring and maximizing financial and operational performance and minimizing risk.
Policies, procedures and guidelines
Develop, implement and uphold policies, procedures and guidelines of world class standards to ensure transparent, prudent, efficient, cost-effective, safe and environmentally sound execution of hydrocarbon activities.
Acreage Management
SHI performs hydrocarbon resource assessment to determine the acreage strategy to drive the direction of hydrocarbon resource development, and to promote the hydrocarbon potential and to negotiate with capable and competent investors to explore and potentially develop hydrocarbon accumulations.
Data Management
SHI is the custodian of all data, and develop a robust and secure centralized Data Management System to:
• unitize, centralize and optimize data storage, management and distribution.
• improve information quality, coherence, consistency, transparency.
• help unlock significant potential across the oil and gas lifecycle.

With the significant hydrocarbon discoveries and therefore the now burgeoning petroleum industry in Suriname, we want to seize the opportunity to play a part in increasing the awareness of Local Content related potential.

To this end Staatsolie commissioned Development Alternatives Incorporated, DAI, to carry out an Industrial Baseline Study to assess the preparedness of the Surinamese private sector under the conditions of a potential supply and demand landscape and the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead.

The study highlights insights into the roles of different stakeholders and which possible strategies and actions could mitigate gaps and what kind of investments would be required to partake in the petroleum sector developments.

Potential suppliers who want to be informed on the developments within the offshore petroleum sector can register on the Supplier Registration Portal (SRP). For questions related to the SRP visit the Frequently Asked Questions section.

Download: Industrial Baseline Study Findings Presentation (Nov 2018)

All petroleum ventures in Suriname are covered by a Production Sharing Contract (PSC), because the PSC allows investor participation while retaining national ownership of shares of petroleum produced. The additional benefits are:

Low risk for host country
Knowledge transfer from IOC to host country
Optimal cost recovery strategy for stakeholders

Through PSCs the host government awards the execution of exploration and production activities to an oil company. The oil company bears the mineral and financial risk of the initiative and explores, develops and ultimately produces the field as required. When successful, the company is permitted to use the money from produced oil to recover capital and operational expenditures, known as "cost oil". The remaining money is known as "profit oil", and is split between the government and the company.

By virtue of the Mining Decree (Official Gazette 1986, no 28) concession rights for petroleum activities are granted exclusively to state enterprises. According to the Petroleum Law (Official Gazette 1991, no 7), state enterprises with petroleum concession rights, are authorized to enter into petroleum agreements with other established petroleum companies.

Our model PSC is publicly available. Download the State Decree Royalty Offshore

SHI is mandated to attract qualified international oil companies to sustainably explore and develop Suriname’s hydrocarbon resources. As of December 2020, there are 12 production sharing contracts for offshore and the onshore blocks active.

Year	Area	Block	Operator	Partner(s)	PSC Effective Date	PSC Status	Well Aliase	Well(s) Drilled	Spud Date	Total Depth (m)
1957	Onshore	N/A	Colmar Surinam Oil Company		30 Jan 1957	Relinquished
1993	Offshore	Contract Area	Pecten Suriname Ltd		15 Nov 1993	Relinquished
1999	Offshore	Inboard and Outboard area	Burlington Resources Suriname Ltd	Shell EP Suriname B.V. Totalfina Exploration Suriname Korea National Oil Corporation	23 Aug 1999	Relinquished
2000	Onshore	Wayambo	Koch Exploration International B.V.		15 Mar 2000	Relinquished
2004	Offshore	30	Repsol Exploracion, S.A		24 Apr 2004	Relinquished	WT-1	West Tapir-1	16 Apr 2008	4080m MD
2004	Offshore	31	Maersk oil Suriname B.V.		25 Nov 2004	Relinquished	AKT-1ST2 Spari-1ST1	Aitkantie-1(ST2) Spari-1(ST1)	14 Apr 2011 (26 May 2011) 14 May 2015	5483m MD 3830m MD
2005	Offshore	32	Occidental of Suriname LLC		25 Oct 2005	Relinquished
2007	Onshore	Uitkijk	Paradise Oil Company N.V.	Hardman Oil and Gas PTY Ltd	23 Jul 2007	Staatsolie Operated
2007	Onshore	Coronie	Paradise Oil Company N.V.	Hardman Oil and Gas PTY Ltd	23 Jul 2007	Relinquished
2007	Offshore	37	Murphy Suriname Oil Company Ltd		6 July2007	Relinquished	CRC-1 ARC-1	Caracara-1 Aracari-1	2 Nov 2010 13 Mar 2011	2705m MD 2450m MD
2010	Offshore	47	Tullow Oil Suriname B.V.	Petroandina Resources Corporation N.V. Chevron Suriname Exploration Limited	30 Sep 2010	Active	GVN-1*	Goliath-Voltzberg North-1	30 Jan 2021	5060m MD
2011	Offshore	42	B.V. Dordtsche Petroleum Maatschappij (“Shell”)	Hess Suriname Exploration Limited	13 Dec 2011	Active	PON-1*	Pontoenoe-1	12 Aug 2018	6194m MD
2011	Offshore	45	Kosmos Energy Suriname	Chevron Suriname Exploration Limited	13 Dec 2011	Relinquished	ANA-1(A)	Anapai-1(A)	5 Apr 2018	3577m MD
2012	Offshore	48	Petronas Suriname E&P B.V.		18 Jan 2012	Active
2013	Offshore	52	Petronas Suriname E&P B.V.	ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Suriname B.V.	26 Apr 2013	Active	RS-1X* SLO-1*	Roselle-1 Sloanea-1	9 May 2016 8 Oct 2020	4908m MD 4780m MD
2013	Offshore	53	APA Suriname Corporation LDC	Cepsa Suriname S.L.	1 Apr 2013	Active	POP-1* KOL-1*	Popokai-1 Kolibrie-1	4 Feb 2015 3 Mar 2017	7200m MD 5212m MD
2014	Offshore	54	Tullow Oil Suriname B.V.		14 Feb 2014	Active	ARA-1*	Araku-1	1 Oct 2017	2685m MD
2015	Offshore	58	Total E&P Suriname B.V.	APA Suriname Corporation LDC	1 Jul 2015	Active	MKC-1* SPW-1* KWA-1* KEE-1* SPW-2* SPS-1* KES-1*	Maka Central-1 Sapakara West-1 Kwaskwasi-1 Keskesi East-1 Sapakara West-2 Sapakara South-1 Keskesi South-1	24 Sep 2019 7 Jan 2020 19 Apr 2020 14 Sep 2020 8 Feb 2021 23 Mar 2021 2 Jun 2021	6285m MD 6326m MD 6644m MD 6675m MD N/A N/A N/A
2018	Offshore	59	ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Suriname B.V.	Hess (Suriname II) Exploration Limited Equinor Suriname B59 B.V.	9 Jul 2018	Active
2018	Offshore	61	Capricorn Suriname B.V.		26 Jun 2018	Active
2018	Offshore	60	Equinor Suriname B60 B.V.		11 Jul 2018	Relinquished
2018	Offshore	62	Tullow Suriname B.V.	Petroandina Resources Corporation N.V.	2 Oct 2018	Relinquished
2019	Onshore	Nickerie	Decker Petroleum and Marketing Co. Ltd.		1 Oct 2019	Active
2019	Onshore	WnZ	Challenger Energy Group PLC		3 Oct 2019	Active
2021	Offshore	Block 5	Chevron Suriname Exploration Limited	Paradise Oil Company N.V.	13 Oct 2021	Active
* Well data not publicly available

The Guiana Basin is a sedimentary basin encompassing the coastal area of French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana and the eastern part of Venezuela (Antillean Arch). Most of the Guyana-Suriname Basin lies offshore, where the sediment package becomes thicker as the basin grows deeper. The outcrop of crystalline Proterozoic basement, the Guiana Shield, marks the southern limit.

Commercial production is for the time being only in the onshore Tambaredjo, Calcutta and Tambaredjo Northwest Fields in Suriname, with an original STOIIP of 1 Billion barrels. These fields are currently producing approximately 16,000 BOPD. Staatsolie has been, for the last 40 years, the sole operator of these fields.

Basin Evolution
- Pre-Rift Basin Structures
- Central Atlantic (CA) Rift Phase
- Equatorial Atlantic (EA) Rift Phase
- Equatorial Atlantic (EA) Post-Rift Phase
Geological Framework
- Geology of Onshore Suriname
- Basin Architecture
- Petroleum Geology
Petroleum Systems
- CANJE Formation
- Inferred Jurassic Source Rock

SHI has collated the vast amount of non-proprietary geological and geophysical data that have been gathered and processed throughout the decades in structured data packages. We are pleased to offer these data packages to competent oil and gas companies to conduct independent evaluations in order to assess the geology and hydrocarbon potential of the Suriname-Guyana Basin. View our data packages here.

If any interested party wishes to purchase any of the data packages or have any inqueries, please send us an email indicating which data package is desired along with any inqueries. Include the following information in your email:

General company information
Contact details of company representative

Once the request has been processed, SHI will submit a confidentiality agreement (CA) for signature. After the CA has been signed by both parties, we will invoice the interested party and only release the data package upon confirmation of payment.

Most Favorable Bids for Shallow Offshore Blocks

Social Responsibility Projects from Production Sharing Contracts

Read the 2018-2020 report here

Local Content Service Forum (4 March 2021)

Here you can find the recordings from the presentations by officials from Total Exploration and Production Suriname B.V. at the Local Content Service Forum on 4 March 2021, the presentation slides, and the FAQ.