A Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) has been signed be­tween Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and Staat­solie Maatschap­pij Suri­name N.V.  

The MOU es­tab­lish­es a frame­work for co­op­er­a­tion amongst three of the top state-owned en­er­gy com­pa­nies in the Caribbean re­gion. 

Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease from Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young  stat­ed “as Cari­com part­ners, Trinidad and To­ba­go and Suri­name will work to­geth­er to ad­dress the chal­lenges to de­vel­op our en­er­gy sec­tors as well as those of our re­gion. Our coun­tries have an im­por­tant role to play in en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty for the re­gion. I look for­ward to a fruit­ful re­la­tion­ship and I am pleased that dis­cus­sions have al­ready com­menced among the par­ties.” 

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um:

Ear­li­er to­day (Mon­day 27 June 2022), a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (“MoU”) be­tween Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (“Her­itage"), Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (“Paria"), and Staat­solie Maatschap­pij Suri­name N.V (“Staat­solie”) was ex­e­cut­ed in Para­mari­bo, Suri­name on the side­lines of the Suri­name En­er­gy, Oil and Gas Sum­mit. 

The MoU es­tab­lish­es a frame­work for co­op­er­a­tion amongst three of the top state-owned en­er­gy com­pa­nies in the Caribbean re­gion. The par­ties ini­tial­ly met in No­vem­ber 2021 when a high-lev­el del­e­ga­tion rep­re­sent­ing Suri­name and its na­tion­al oil com­pa­ny, Staat­solie, met with mem­bers of the lead­er­ship of Her­itage and Paria, at Her­itage’s Port of Spain, Trinidad of­fice. 

Present at to­day’s meet­ing were Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, the Ho­n­ourable Stu­art Young, Her­itage CEO Ar­lene Chow, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Staat­solie Anand Jage­sar and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Paria Mush­taq Mo­hammed. Un­der the MoU, the Par­ties agreed to en­ter in­to dis­cus­sions re­lat­ed to iden­ti­fy­ing mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial part­ner­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties un­der three broad ar­eas- Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion (E&P); Trad­ing and Mar­ket­ing; and En­vi­ron­ment, So­cial, and Gov­er­nance (ESG). 

Min­is­ter Young af­firmed the op­por­tu­ni­ties for col­lab­o­ra­tion among the MoU par­ties and ex­pressed, “as Cari­com part­ners, Trinidad and To­ba­go and Suri­name will work to­geth­er to ad­dress the chal­lenges to de­vel­op our en­er­gy sec­tors as well as those of our re­gion. Our coun­tries have an im­por­tant role to play in en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty for the re­gion. I look for­ward to a fruit­ful re­la­tion­ship and I am pleased that dis­cus­sions have al­ready com­menced among the par­ties.” 

Over the com­ing months a num­ber of op­por­tu­ni­ties un­der the afore­men­tioned three broad cat­e­gories will be as­sessed and fur­ther de­vel­oped. At the end of this as­sess­ment ex­er­cise, if one or more op­por­tu­ni­ties are judged to be fea­si­ble, then the par­ties may pro­pose to en­ter in­to ne­go­ti­a­tion of com­mer­cial terms. 

The sign­ing of the MOU sig­nals the start of the co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the re­spec­tive State En­er­gy com­pa­nies as well as the forg­ing of deep­er re­la­tion­ships be­tween the en­er­gy sec­tors of Suri­name and Trinidad and To­ba­go.