PARAMARIBO, March 18, 2026, 18:34 SRT 1
Suriname is widening its offshore oil hunt beyond the deepwater corridor that delivered its first wave of discoveries, with a new industry study flagging a possible extension of the Guyana-Suriname basin’s “Golden Lane” and a planned seismic campaign aimed at sharpening the country’s deepwater resource picture. The push would broaden the search into frontier acreage with little or no 3D seismic, the subsurface mapping tool companies use before drilling. 2
The timing matters because Suriname is trying to turn one flagship offshore project into a broader pipeline ahead of first oil in 2028. Staatsolie’s open-door offering, a rolling acreage process, now covers about 60% of the country’s offshore area, while the $10.5 billion GranMorgu project is set to become Suriname’s first major offshore production hub. 3
In a report published on Tuesday, Neil Hodgson, Karyna Rodriguez and Lauren Found of Searcher, writing with Staatsolie geoscientists, argued that Suriname’s northwest sub-basin could mirror the trap style that has underpinned the Golden Lane discoveries. They called the area “the next great play to chase” and said the main gap is the lack of 3D seismic across the northern terrace, including Block 59. 2
BNamericas reported that Staatsolie is preparing a 15-month multi-client 3D towed-streamer survey offshore, a vessel-towed cable system that gathers seismic data beneath the seabed. The work would span about 45,000 sq km in water depths of 100 to 4,000 metres, 90 km to 370 km offshore, with 20,000 sq km targeted for acquisition, the report said. 4
The shallower-water push is already moving from concept to data collection. BGP said in January that it had completed acquisition of a 2,100 sq km multi-client 3D survey with TGS and Staatsolie in Suriname’s southern shallow-water area, and TGS says the shallow-water blocks sit south of the deepwater discoveries and north of the onshore producing oilfields, where companies are testing whether hydrocarbons migrated updip from the basin’s source kitchens. 5
Operator interest has followed. PETRONAS, Chevron, QatarEnergy and Paradise Oil Company signed production-sharing contracts for shallow offshore Blocks 9 and 10 in November, covering a combined 5,456 sq km, and PETRONAS Vice President of Exploration Faisal Bakar said the move reflected its “confidence in Suriname’s offshore potential.” 6
Across the border, Guyana is moving in the same direction. The government said on March 9 it was advancing a 25,000 sq km offshore 3D seismic program south of the Stabroek block and toward the Suriname border, underscoring a regional push to de-risk frontier acreage with fresh subsurface data before the next round of drilling decisions. 7
That strategy rests on a proven core. TotalEnergies says GranMorgu, its Block 58 project with APA, holds nearly 760 million barrels of recoverable reserves and is due to start up in 2028 at 220,000 barrels per day, while Reuters has reported that neighboring Guyana’s Stabroek block has yielded more than 11 billion barrels of discovered oil and gas, the benchmark that has drawn majors across the basin. 8
But the next leg is less certain. The GeoExpro authors noted that several down- and up-dip tests outside the core Golden Lane have yet to prove commercial, and they said the northwest sub-basin still lacks the 3D seismic needed to cut false positives before a well is drilled. 2
That leaves Suriname with a clearer, but still untested, pitch to investors: the basin may be wider than the deepwater story that first put it on the map. Caribbean Energy Week, which opens in Paramaribo on March 30, has scheduled sessions on shallow-water drilling and “Deepwater Excellence” in the Guyana-Suriname basin, a sign that operators now see the next chapter as a portfolio of plays, not a single lane. 9
