One Basin, Every Licence: a free licence atlas of the Guyana–Suriname Basin

Why a free licence map is rare

Licence maps are working tools. An explorer reads them to see who holds what next door. A government reads them to see which acreage is idle, and an investor to see which partner carries which share. Yet in this basin a public map with every licence, every holder and every working interest on both sides of the border is hard to find. The usual choice is between two national maps that stop at the boundary, a press-release graphic that shows one company’s acreage, or a paid atlas.

There are reasons for this. Ownership changes through farm-ins, mergers and relinquishments that are announced at different times and in different places. Guyana and Suriname use different contract forms, different numbering and different registers. Keeping one map current means reading ministry notices, Staatsolie releases, operator filings and the local press in two countries every week.

GIP was built to do that work once, in one coordinate frame, for the whole basin.

The atlas

Figure 1 shows the atlas; Figures 2 and 3 show each side of the border in detail. Blocks are filled in the operator’s colour; hatching marks expired or disputed licences; dashed gold marks awards whose contracts are not yet signed; dotted outlines mark Suriname’s open-door sectors. Each side panel carries one card per licence: operator marker, a working-interest bar, signing date, licence term and status. Official wellheads, development projects and FPSOs from the GIP register sit on the map for context.

What the atlas shows

Three patterns stand out.

First, operatorship is concentrated. Five companies operate most of the active acreage: ExxonMobil in Stabroek; TotalEnergies in Block 58, Blocks 6, 8 and 64 and Guyana’s S4; PETRONAS in Blocks 52, 48, 63, 66 and 9; Chevron in Blocks 5, 7 and 10 and as the largest holder in Block 42; and PetroChina in the shallow Blocks 14 and 15 (Staatsolie; Guyana Times). QatarEnergy holds non-operated stakes in seven Suriname blocks and in Guyana’s S4. Staatsolie’s participation company carries 10 to 40 percent in most shallow and newer blocks.

Second, the Guyana map is thinning outside Stabroek. Canje expired in early 2026 and ExxonMobil chose not to renew it (OilNOW). Kanuku lapsed in May 2023 (OilNOW). Government treats Corentyne as expired since 28 June 2024, which the CGX–Frontera joint venture disputes (CGX Energy). Orinduik’s licence ended on 14 January 2026, with a new agreement under negotiation (Eco Atlantic). Of the 14 blocks offered in the 2022–2023 auction, only S4 and S7 are signed, and only S4 shows work in progress (Kaieteur News). The Stabroek exploration licence itself runs to October 2027 after a one-year extension (Kaieteur News).

Third, the Suriname map is filling up. Since December 2023, Suriname has signed Blocks 63, 64 and 65, Blocks 14 and 15, Block 66 and Blocks 9 and 10 (QatarEnergy; Staatsolie). An open-door offering covers the remaining offshore acreage until November 2027, and proposals have been received for three of its five sectors (Staatsolie).

From silos to one linked platform

Most licence information lives in silos. The block map sits on one ministry page, the wells in a register elsewhere, licence history in a stream of press releases, fiscal terms in a contract or not at all, and commentary in newsletters that rarely link back to the map. Each silo stops at the national border.

GIP joins them. In GIP a block is an object, not a polygon on a picture. Stabroek, for example, links to 73 register wells, 8 development projects, 5 FPSOs, 7 licence-history events, 13 GLIAG essays and 10 Basin Watch editions (Figure 4). Block 58 links to 30 essays, 4 projects, 4 licence events and its FPSO. A reader moves from block to well to discovery to licence history to commentary in a few clicks, on either side of the border.

The same register feeds the GLIAG newsletters and Basin Watch on Petroleum & Energy Insights, and the companion method paper on petroleum-systems analysis in the basin (Chin-A-Lien, 2026).

Table 1. Licence register

Status 30 October 2026. WI = working interest, percent; op = operator. “Not published” means no public source was found by the cut-off date.

Method and limitations

Block geometry is taken from the GIP register, which holds the Guyana Ministry of Natural Resources oil-blocks layers and the Staatsolie SHI GeoPortal blocks and open-door sectors in EPSG:4326. Where Guyana layers overlap, the exploration-licence outline takes precedence over the active-block outline, and auction blocks are cut from older block shapes. Outlines are indicative and are not survey boundaries.

Holders, working interests and dates were checked against ministry and Staatsolie notices, operator releases and filings, and the Guyanese and regional energy press, up to 30 October 2026. Where sources disagree, the table gives the later official statement and notes the conflict. Company markers are colour monograms, not trademarks; no endorsement by any company is implied.

The Venezuelan claim over waters off Guyana is noted on the map. Boundaries and names on the atlas do not imply any position on that claim or on any other maritime boundary.

The atlas is a research product, not a legal record of title. Licence status should be confirmed with the issuing authority before any commercial use.

Research integrity, data and AI disclosure

The atlas and the register were compiled from public sources and the author’s GIP platform. No confidential data were used. The map, the table and the object counts were generated with Python (Matplotlib, Shapely, NumPy, SciPy) from the GIP register on 30 October 2026. Interpretation and all GLIAG judgements are attributed to Marcel P.T. Chin-A-Lien. Perplexity Computer, an AI agent system, assisted with source verification, map drafting and document preparation; it is not an author, and the named author is responsible for every claim. This essay has not been peer reviewed.

References

Ministry of Natural Resources, Guyana. Oil blocks. https://petroleum.gov.gy/oil-blocks/

Ministry of Natural Resources, Guyana. Well activities register. https://petroleum.gov.gy/well-activities/

Staatsolie Maatschappij Suriname N.V. SHI GeoPortal. https://geoportal-staatsolie.hub.arcgis.com/

Staatsolie. Investing offshore and Open-Door Offering. https://www.2026.staatsolie.com/en/investors/investing-offshore/

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (2022). ETOPO 2022 15 Arc-Second Global Relief Model. https://doi.org/10.25921/fd45-gt74

Natural Earth. 1:10m coastline. Public domain. https://www.naturalearthdata.com/

Flanders Marine Institute (2023). Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase, version 12. Marine Regions. CC BY 4.0. https://www.marineregions.org/

Licence-specific sources are linked in Table 1.

Related work by the author

Chin-A-Lien, M.P.T. (2026). Petroleum Systems Analysis of the Guyana–Suriname Basin with the GLIAG methodology. GLIAG-PS-GSB-20261030-001, Revision 1.1, 30 October 2026. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23815989

About the author

Drs. Marcel P.T. Chin-A-Lien, MBA, M.Sc., Ing., geologist, is Principal Founder and Chief Architect of GLIAG. AAPG Certified Petroleum Geologist #5201-1996; EFG European Geologist #92-1996; AIEN Energy Negotiator. He works from Zoetermeer and Paramaribo on the petroleum systems, fiscal design and development strategy of the Guyana–Suriname Basin.

Competing interests

The author leads GLIAG, which develops GIP and offers advisory services to governments, national oil companies and investors. GLIAG is not a sponsor of, or equity investor in, any licence shown. This is not investment advice.

Copyright, licence and citation

© 2026 Marcel P.T. Chin-A-Lien. Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Third parties keep their rights in the data and publications cited. GLIAG, GIP and Golden Lane are trade names of the author.

Cite as: Chin-A-Lien, M.P.T. (2026). One Basin, Every Licence: a free licence atlas of the Guyana–Suriname Basin from the GLIAG GSB Intelligence Platform. GLIAG-LIC-GSB-20261030-002, Revision 1.2, 30 October 2026. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23819316

Revision history: Revision 1.2 (30 October 2026) corrects S7 to Cybele Energy alone, as stated by Guyana’s Minister of Natural Resources, adds its unpaid signing bonus and September 2026 deadline, and sets Nickerie to Decker 100% under its 2019 contract with Staatsolie. Revision 1.1 (30 October 2026) moves the Corentyne label clear of the S10 label, abbreviates the S10 holder to IGI and makes the French Guiana label legible. Holdings, dates and sources are unchanged. Revisions 1.0 and 1.1 remain available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23817432 and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23818561.

Text and data mining. The author expressly reserves the rights of reproduction and extraction of this work for text and data mining, including the training of artificial-intelligence systems, under Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790.

Correspondence: info@gliag.com.