Hess looking for partner for Block 59

The American international oil and gas company Hess Corporation (Hess) is looking for partner(s) for Block 59 in offshore Suriname. Hess is now the only party in the block after ExxonMobil (USA) and Equinor (Norway) transferred their respective interests to it in July 2024.

Hess wants to continue exploring Block 59 and has been given the time by Staatsolie Maatschappij Suriname N.V. (Staatsolie) until July 2025 to attract a partner for Block 59 and then enter the next phase in the exploration period. Attracting a partner must be seen against the background of the enormous investments and risks that exploration in frontier deepwater areas such as Block 59 entails.

Staatsolie grants exploration, development and production rights to a foreign oil and gas company through a production sharing contract (PSC). The costs and risks in the exploration period are fully borne by them. The PSC allows parties to attract partners in a block or transfer their interests to another party. This is common practice in the oil and gas industry. Companies decide to partner in an area or exit based on their global portfolio and risk assessments.

In 2018, Staatsolie signed the PSC for Block 59 with ExxonMobil, Hess and Equinor. This block is located in the extreme northwest offshore Suriname, is approximately 4,400 square kilometers in size and lies in water depths of 2,000 meters to 3,600 meters. ExxonMobil had the lead in the collaboration (operator) in which each partner participated for one third. Equinor's decision to leave Suriname is due to its strategy to produce oil and gas in only a few core areas and to invest more in renewable energy. In the past six years, Equinor has withdrawn from about twenty countries, such as South Africa, Mexico, Turkey and Nicaragua. In most countries, oil and gas exploration was the sole activity.