Norwegian marine seismic services company Shearwater GeoServices said Monday it had been awarded a contract by Malaysia's Petronas for work offshore Suriname.
The award is for a large towed streamer 3D seismic survey over Petronas' Block 52, offshore Suriname.
The four-month survey project is scheduled to start in Q4, 2020.
"This new survey in Suriname comes at an exciting time for this area,” said Irene Waage Basili, the Chief Executive Officer of Shearwater. “We look forward to working together with [Petronas], for this project.”
The 3D seismic survey covers surface area of 6,200 sq. km in Suriname’s Block 52 and will be carried out by the Geo Caribbean vessel, currently located in Las Palmas.
Oil companies have in the recent period been building up the presence in Suriname, following a string of offshore discoveries (18) in neighboring Guyana by ExxonMobil.
Worth noting, Apache, with partner Total, has in the past nine months made three large oil discoveries in Suriname and is now drilling for the fourth.
Petronas is the operator of Block 52 with 50% participating interest. The company in May farmed out a 50 percent stake in the block to ExxonMobil.
A month later, Petronas hired Maersk Drilling's semi-submersible drilling rig Maersk Developer to drill a well in its Block 52. The rig is currently in Trinidad and is expected to begin drilling in Suriname soon.
The Maersk Developer is a DSS-21 column-stabilized, dynamically positioned semi-submersible rig, able to operate in water depths up to 10,000ft.
