Petronas discovers oil in Suriname Block 52
Published on: Saturday, November 04, 2023
By: Bernama
Petronas executive vice-president and chief executive officer of upstream, Datuk Adif Zulkifli, said the group viewed the Roystonea-1 oil discovery as a positive development towards realising its differentiated barrel strategy for international upstream ventures, focusing on a material discovery with minimal contaminants.
Kuala Lumpur: Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s (Petronas) subsidiary, Petronas Suriname E&P BV, has made an oil discovery at the Roystonea-1 exploration well in Suriname’s Block 52.
The national oil company said in a statement that the well, located about 185 kilometres offshore in a water depth of 904 metres, was successfully drilled to a total depth of 5,315 metres. It also encountered several oil-bearing Campanian sandstone reservoir packages.
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Further evaluation is being undertaken to determine the full extent of this discovery and its potential development synergy with the Sloanea-1 discovery made in 2020 within the same block, it said.
Petronas executive vice-president and chief executive officer of upstream, Datuk Adif Zulkifli, said the group viewed the Roystonea-1 oil discovery as a positive development towards realising its differentiated barrel strategy for international upstream ventures, focusing on a material discovery with minimal contaminants.
Petronas vice-president of exploration Mohd Redhani Abdul Rahman said the success of Roystonea-1 is expected to drive further exploration for commercially viable hydrocarbon resources in the surrounding areas.
“Petronas will continue to work closely with the host authority, Staatsolie, and partners to unlock Suriname’s hydrocarbon potential. We look forward to implementing safe and successful future exploration programmes together,” he added.
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Petronas said Block 52, which covers an area of 4,749 square kilometres, is located north of the coast of Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital city, within the prospective Suriname-Guyana basin.
Petronas Suriname E&P is the operator of Block 52 with a 50 per cent participating interest.
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In addition to Block 52, Petronas Suriname E&P operates Block 48 with a full participating interest.
“It is also a partner with 30 per cent non-operating participating interest in the adjacent Block 53, where the Baja-1 oil discovery was made in 2022,” the national oil company said.
This discovery is a result of Petronas’ ongoing efforts towards ensuring energy security to meet the growing global energy demands, it added.
Meanwhile, Kenanga Research has upgraded Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd (PChem) to ‘Market perform’ from ‘Underperform’, and raised its target price (TP) by 16 per cent to RM7.20 from RM6.20 previously.
The research outfit liked the company due to signs of bottoming of polyolefin prices supported by crude prices; specialty chemicals division potentially seeing trough earnings in financial year 2023 (FY2023) with (FY2024) poised to be a year of gradual recovery; and its superior margins versus its peers due to a favourable cost structure.
However, it said the upside to its earnings and hence share price is capped by the limited upside to its product prices amid a tepid global economic outlook.
“We cut our FY2023 earnings forecast by seven per cent as we lower our plant utilisation assumption to 89 per cent (from 95 per cent) but raise our FY2024 earnings by eight per cent to reflect a higher urea price assumption of US$350 per tonne (US$1=RM4.747) for FY2023 and US$400 per tonne in FY2024,” it said.
Kenanga said risks to its call include worse-than-expected economic growth globally leading to weaker petrochemical prices; costs at the Pengerang Integrated Complex exceeding estimates due to operational issues; and worse-than-expected oversupply in specialty chemicals particularly in the European region.
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