finding of a "significant" amount of oil in off-shore wells puts the former Dutch colony on the heels of neighboring Guyana

The intuition has proved to be correct and the prospections carried out under Suriname's territorial waters, together with the successful hydrocarbon reserves being exploited in Guyana's maritime limits, have found abundant oil. The finding could be a decisive boost for the development of what is, after Guyana, the second poorest country in South America, but it could also be an opportunity, as is the case with its neighbor, to accentuate the economic and political corruption that has been hindering the progress of the population.

▲ Suriname's presidential palace in the country's capital, Paramaribo [Ian Mackenzie].

article / Álvaro de Lecea

So far this year, drilling in two 'off-shore' oil fields in Suriname has result positive, confirming the existence of "significant" oil in block 58, operated by the French company Total, in partnership with the American company Apache. Everything indicates that the same success could be obtained in block 52, operated by the also American ExxonMobil and the Malaysian Petronas, which were pioneers in prospecting in Surinamese waters with operations since 2016.

Both blocks are adjacent to the fields being exploited under the waters of neighboring Guyana, where for the moment it is estimated that there are some 3.2 billion barrels of extractable oil. In the case of Suriname, the prospections carried out in the first viable field, Maka Central-1, discovered in January 2020, speak of 300 million barrels, but the estimates from Sapakara West-1, discovered in April, and subsequent programmed prospections have yet to be added. It is considered that some 15 billion barrels of oil reserves may exist in the Guyana-Suriname basin.

Until this new oil era in the Guianas (the former English and Dutch Guianas; the French Guianas remains an overseas dependency of France), Suriname was considered to have reserves of 99 million barrels, which at the current rate of exploitation left two decades to deplete. In 2016, the country produced just 16,400 barrels per day.

political, economic and social status

With just under 600,000 inhabitants, Suriname is the least populated country in South America. Its Economics depends largely on the export of metals and minerals, especially bauxite. The fall in commodity prices since 2014 particularly affected the country's accounts. In 2015, there was a GDP contraction of 3.4% and 5.6% in 2016. Although the evolution then became positive again, the IMF forecasts for this 2020, in the wake of the global crisis due to Covid-19, a 4.9% drop in GDP.

Since gaining independence in 1975 from the Netherlands, its weak democracy has suffered three coups d'état. Two of them were led by the same person: Desi Bouterse, the country's president until this July. Bouterse staged a coup in 1980 and remained at the helm of power indirectly until 1988. During those years, he kept Suriname under a dictatorship. In 1990 he staged another coup d'état, although this time he resigned the presidency. He was accused of the 1982 murder of 15 political opponents, in a long judicial process that finally ended in December 2019 with a twenty-year prison sentence and is now appealed by Bouterse. He has also been convicted of drug trafficking in the Netherlands, for which the resulting international arrest warrant prevents him from leaving Suriname. His son Dino has also been convicted of drug and arms trafficking and is imprisoned in the United States. Bouterse's Suriname has come to be presented as the paradigm of the mafia state.

In 2010 Desi Bouterse won the elections as candidate of the National Democratic Party (NDP); in 2015 he was re-elected for another five years. In the elections last May 25, despite some controversial measures to limit the options for civil service examination, he lost to Chan Santokhi, leader of the Progressive Reform Party (VHP). He tried to delay the counting and validation of votes, citing the health emergency caused by the coronavirus, but finally at the end of June the new National Assembly was constituted and it should appoint the new president of the country during July.

Total's operations in Suriname and Guyana waters [Total].

Relationship with Venezuela

Suriname intends to take advantage of this prospect of an oil bonanza to strengthen Staatsolie, the state-owned oil company. In January, before the Covid-19 crisis became widespread, it announced the purpose of expanding its presence in the bond market in 2020 and also, conditions permitting, to list its shares in London or New York. This would serve to raise up to $2 billion to finance the national oil company's exploration campaign in the coming years.

On the other hand, Venezuela's territorial claims against Guyana, which affect the Essequibo -the western half of the former British colony- and which are being studied by the International Court of Justice, include part of the maritime space in which Guyana is extracting oil, but do not affect Suriname, whose delimitations are outside the scope of this old dispute.

Venezuela and Suriname have maintained special relations during Chavismo and while Desi Bouterse has been in power. Occasionally, a certain connection has been pointed out between drug trafficking under the protection of Chavista authorities and that attributed to Bouterse. The offer made by his son to Hezbollah to have training camps in Suriname, a matter for which he was arrested in 2015 in Panama at the request of the United States and tried in New York, can be understood in light of the relationship maintained by Chavism and Hezbollah, to whose operatives Caracas has provided passports to facilitate their movements. Suriname has supported Venezuela in regional forums at times of international pressure against the regime of Nicolás Maduro. In addition, the country has been increasingly strengthening its relations with Russia and China, from which in December 2019 it obtained the commitment of a new credit .

With the political change of the last elections, in principle Maduro's Venezuela loses a close ally, while it may gain an oil competitor (at least as long as Venezuelan oil exploitation remains at a minimum).

After centuries of Caribbean orientation, the enclave accentuates its relationship with its neighbors on the mainland.

Two years ago, Suriname and Guyana became part of the South American soccer federation, leaving the North, Central American and Caribbean federation to which they belonged. It is a clear symbol of the change in geographical orientation that is taking place in this northeastern corner of South America, which, as in the case of soccer, sees the potential for a closer relationship with its southern neighbors.

article / Alba Redondo

As vestiges of the colonial past of the great European naval powers of the 17th century -England, Holland and France- we find in the northeast of South America the three Guianas: Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. In addition to the natural barriers that isolate the region and hinder its connection with the rest of the South American continent - it has a closer relationship with the Caribbean, although its Atlantic coast is outside that sea - there are also social, cultural and idiomatic barriers that complicate its integration into the continent.

Located in the northeast of the South American continent, the region was called Guayana or "land of many waters" by its original inhabitants, the Arawaks. The area is bordered to the west by Venezuela and to the south by Brazil, countries that also include lands that are part of the Guiana natural region. The humid terrain and coastline, dense with mangrove swamps and marshes, combine with the tropical climate of the interior, which is characterized by virgin forests, high plateaus and large mountain ranges such as the Guiana Shield. Its population, ranging from indigenous to European descendants, is located in the coastal area and in the river valleys.

The Guianas are spoken of jointly not only because they form a common territory for the natives, but also because they were left out of the continental distribution made by the two great empires of the Iberian Peninsula. Being a territory not easily accessible from the rest of the continent, the lack of Spanish and Portuguese presence led other European powers of the time to seek to set foot there, in exploration campaigns carried out during the seventeenth century. British Guiana gained independence in 1970 and Dutch Guiana in 1975. French Guiana remains a department and an overseas region of France and, consequently, an outermost territory of the European Union in South America.

The three unknown

To the west of the region lies Guyana, officially known as the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. The country has a population of about 773,000 inhabitants, mostly located in Georgetown, its capital. Its official language is English, a bequest of its colonial past. The Guyanese political-social reality is marked by the conflictive coexistence between the two great ethnic groups: the Afro-Guyanese and the Indo-Guyanese. Its internal politics is characterized by the bipartisanship between the PNC (People's National Congress) formed by the Afro-descendants concentrated in the urban centers; and the PPP (People Progressive Party), with greater influence in the rural zone, constituted by descendants of immigrants from India arrived during the British Empire and who work in the sugar plantations.

Despite a recent increase in foreign investment, Guyana is the poorest country with the highest crime, violence and suicide rates on the continent. In addition, its international image is conditioned by its perception as a reference area for international cocaine distribution and its high rate of corruption. However, the country's future points to its entry into the world's major oil powers after finding one of the largest oil and gas fields discovered in our decade.

Like Guyana, the political life of the Republic of Suriname is subject to a great ethno-cultural mosaic. The former Dutch colony, with its capital in Paramaribo, is the smallest and least populated country in South America, with only 163,821 inhabitants. After its independence in 1975, more than one third of the population emigrated to the metropolis (the Netherlands). This produced a major structural crisis due to the lack of human capital in the country. Suriname is made up of descendants from almost all continents: Africans, Indians, Chinese and Javanese, aborigines and Europeans. Its domestic policy is marked by the influence of Desiré Bouterse and by the democratic aspirations of the society. Regarding its foreign policy, Suriname is committed to a better control of its resource exports, mainly aluminum, and to a progressive integration in the regional and international sphere, in most cases, together with its neighboring country, Guyana.

Unlike the other two Guianas, French Guiana is not an independent country, but an overseas region of France, which is located more than 7,000 km from France. The capital of this territory is Cayenne. For a long time it was used by France as a penal colony. It has the highest homicide rate in the entire French-speaking territory and is known for its high crime rate. As a Gallic department , it is part of the European Union and home to the French Guiana Space Center, housing one of Europe's main satellite launching stations in Kourou. French Guiana is facing growing unemployment, lack of resources for Education and dissatisfaction among its population which has led to numerous protests.

Change of orientation

Due to the strong historical relationship with their respective metropolises and their late independence, there has traditionally been an important barrier between the Guianas and South America. Geographically, they are cornered on the northern coast of South America, with difficulty in developing contacts to the south, due to the orography of the Guiana massif and the Amazon rainforest. But there have also been cultural and linguistic reasons that contributed to a rapprochement between this region and the western Caribbean, where England, Holland and France had -and still have in some cases- island possessions.

However, after a long period of relative isolation, with hardly any relations with their southern neighbors, the republics of Suriname and Guyana have begun to join the dynamics of economic and political integration in South America.

Traditionally, the two States have had a closer relationship with the Caribbean: both are full members of CARICOM, Georgetown being the headquarters of this community of Caribbean countries, and are part of the association of Caribbean States (ACS), with the peculiarity of the presence of French Guiana as a partner. In recent years, Suriname and Guyana have begun to look more towards the continent itself: they participated in the creation of Unasur and are observer countries of Mercosur. Symbolic of this change of orientation was the entry in 2016 of these two countries into Conmebol, the South American soccer federation, leaving the North, Central American and Caribbean federation to which they belonged.

This closer relationship with its continental neighbors and participation in the South American integration process should serve to resolve some pending border issues, such as the dispute between Venezuela and Guyana: Caracas has historically claimed the territory between its border and the Essequibo River, which flows through the middle of Guyana. However, as other Latin American territorial disputes are being resolved in international courts, the Essequibo dispute threatens to perpetuate itself for the time being.