The Malaysia-based Petro­liam Na­sion­al Berhad (Petronas) says it plans to drill four new oil wells in Suri­name which are ex­pect­ed to lead to fur­ther pro­duc­tion de­vel­op­ments lat­er this year, ac­cord­ing to state-owned Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vice Suri­name.

It said that the as­sur­ance was giv­en on Mon­day, dur­ing dis­cus­sions be­tween Pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Geer­lings-Si­mons and a Petronas del­e­ga­tion that in­clud­ed Mo­hd Jukris Ab­dul Wa­hab, Petronas’ ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer.

Petronas op­er­ates in eight blocks off the coast of Suri­name and ac­cord­ing to the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vice Suri­name, Pres­i­dent Geer­lings-Si­mons has shown great in­ter­est in Petronas’ gas de­vel­op­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the off­shore sec­tor.

It said that gas was re­cent­ly dis­cov­ered in block 52 and it is cur­rent­ly be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed whether this could lead to large-scale gas de­vel­op­ment.

Di­rec­tor of the state-owned oil com­pa­ny, Staat­solie, An­nand Jage­sar as well as  Gas and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, Patrick Brun­ings, at­tend­ed the meet­ing with Brun­ing in­di­cat­ing that the min­istry plays “a sup­port­ing and con­nect­ing role” in the col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Staat­solie and Petronas.

“Petronas is an im­por­tant part­ner for Suri­name, and we want to learn from its ex­per­tise, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the field of re­new­able en­er­gy and the en­er­gy tran­si­tion. We are not on­ly look­ing at cur­rent oil and gas pro­duc­tion, but al­so at the fu­ture be­yond fos­sil fu­els,” he said.

Jage­sar called Petronas a long-stand­ing and re­li­able part­ner, point­ing out that Suri­name holds one of the com­pa­ny’s most im­por­tant strate­gic po­si­tions out­side Malaysia.

Ac­cord­ing to the Staat­solie di­rec­tor, the re­cent gas dis­cov­ery in Block 52 and the planned oil drilling of­fer new op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“Oil pro­duc­tion at Gran­morgu alone of­fers enor­mous po­ten­tial for pover­ty re­duc­tion and eco­nom­ic growth. With the ad­di­tion­al gas and oil de­vel­op­ments, Suri­name can be­come a pros­per­ous coun­try, pro­vid­ed these de­vel­op­ments are man­aged care­ful­ly and re­spon­si­bly,” Jage­sar said.

CDS said that dur­ing the meet­ing, em­pha­sis was al­so placed on lo­cal con­tent, the ac­tive in­volve­ment of Suri­namese com­pa­nies, and skilled pro­fes­sion­als in the oil and gas sec­tor. It said that in­vest­ments will be made in ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing so that Suri­namese peo­ple can di­rect­ly ben­e­fit from em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties in the sec­tor and re­lat­ed in­dus­tries.

PARA­MARI­BO, Suri­name, Sept 9, CMC -

CMC/ad/ir/2025