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TotalEnergies to sign $10 billion deal on Suriname’s first offshore project, sources say
Apache’s oil platform at sea. Photo Credit: APA Corporation
Kaieteur News – PARIS/PARAMARIBO, Sept 30 – French oil major TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) will sign a final investment decision (FID) on Tuesday for a more than US$10 billion offshore oil and gas development in Suriname, the South American country’s first, said four sources with knowledge of the project.
Located in Block 58 about 140 km offshore, the Gran Morgu field has estimated recoverable resources amounting to 700 million barrels of oil equivalent, adjacent to Exxon Mobil’s massive 11 billion-barrel find in neighbouring oil hotspot Guyana. TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne will fly to Paramaribo for a FID announcement alongside Surinamese President Chan Santokhi before travelling to New York for the company’s investor day on Wednesday, added the sources, who declined to be identified because the details had not been made public.
Annand Jagesar, the CEO of Suriname’s state-owned energy company and market regulator Staatsolie, said last week that it was “highly likely” Staatsolie would succeed in raising the funds needed to exercise its option to buy a 20% stake in the project, which is currently split 50-50 between operator TotalEnergies and the Texas-based APA Staatsolie and APA declined comment.
Staatsolie has estimated Suriname’s oil and gas resources could bring in between $16 billion and $26 billion—dwarfing the country’s $4.34 billion GDP. First oil on Gran Morgu is targeted for early 2028 using a floating production, storage and offloading vessel capable of processing 200,000 barrels of oil per day. For TotalEnergies, the Suriname project is part of its strategy to focus on low-cost, low-emissions upstream oil projects throwing one of its main industries into uncertainty. The oil will be able to be produced for under $20 per barrel, Pouyanne has said, while respecting the company’s emissions cap of 18 kg of CO2-equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent on new projects. Earlier this year TotalEnergies took FIDs on offshore fields in Angola and Brazil, and is pursuing development of major discoveries in Namibia.
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