Staat­solie, Suri­name’s state-owned oil and en­er­gy com­pa­ny, has con­firmed that Hess, the US-based oil and gas com­pa­ny, has de­cid­ed to re­lin­quish its in­ter­est in Block 59 off­shore Suri­name.

“Hess has ful­filled its min­i­mum work oblig­a­tions and de­cid­ed not to pro­ceed to the next phase of the ex­plo­ration pe­ri­od end­ing Ju­ly 8, 2025,” Staat­solie said in a state­ment, adding that the block will be­come avail­able for new con­tracts.

The de­ci­sion by Hess fol­lows the with­draw­al of its part­ners, Sta­toil Suri­name B59 (now Equinor Suri­name B59) and Exxon­Mo­bil Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Suri­name that in Ju­ly 2024 trans­ferred their stakes to Hess, mak­ing it the sole par­tic­i­pant in the block.

Signed in Ju­ly 2017, the Pro­duc­tion Shar­ing Con­tract (PSC) for Block 59 in­volved Staat­solie, Exxon­Mo­bil, Sta­toil (Equinor), and Hess.

The block, lo­cat­ed in the far north-west of Suri­name’s off­shore ter­ri­to­ry, spans ap­prox­i­mate­ly 11,480 kilo­me­tres-squared (km²) in wa­ter depths rang­ing from 2,700 me­tres to 3,500 me­tres.

De­spite the col­lec­tion of 6,000km of 2D seis­mic da­ta and 9,000km² of 3D seis­mic da­ta, the pre­vi­ous part­ners deemed the risk of drilling an ex­plo­ration well too high.

Hess’s ef­forts to at­tract new part­ners for fur­ther ex­plo­ration of Block 59 over the past year al­so have been un­suc­cess­ful.

Staat­solie said the pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tract gives par­ties cer­tain rights, in­clud­ing the right to with­draw, adding: “This is com­mon in the oil and gas in­dus­try.”

With the re­lin­quish­ment, Hess re­tains an in­ter­est in Block 42, which is lo­cat­ed south of Block 59. —PARA­MARI­BO, Suri­name (CMC)