ExxonMobil and its partner Petronas have discovered oil and gas offshore Suriname, which adds to Exxon's numerous discoveries offshore Guyana in the same Guyana-Suriname basin, the U.S. supermajor said on Friday.
The hydrocarbons were discovered in the Sloanea-1 exploration well on Block 52, which is operated by Malaysia's Petronas with a 50-percent stake. Exxon holds the remaining 50-percent interest in the block.
The discovery is currently being evaluated to see how much resources it could yield, Exxon and Petronas said.
"Our first discovery in Suriname extends ExxonMobil's leading position in South America, building on our successful investments in Guyana," Mike Cousins, senior vice president of exploration and new ventures at ExxonMobil, said in a statement.
The basin offshore Guyana is one of Exxon's near-term investment priorities, the supermajor said in November when it announced its capital budget for the next five years.
Offshore Guyana, Exxon announced in early September its 18th oil discovery, which adds to its previous estimate of more than 8 billion barrels of discovered recoverable resources in the area.
At the end of September, Exxon said it had made the final investment decision on the Payara offshore field in Guyana, expecting Payara to yield up to 220,000 bpd of crude when commercial production begins in 2024.
Payara is the third offshore development project of the supermajor in Guyana, which rose to fame thanks to a string of discoveries in the Stabroek block made by Exxon and its partner Hess Corp.
In less than five years, Exxon and its partners in the Stabroek Block made more than a dozen quality discoveries on the block, making Guyana the newest oil-producing nation last year. Guyana officially joined the ranks of oil producers at the end of December 2019, after Exxon and its partners began oil production offshore the country.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More