The Economics of Refining Golden Lane™ Crude in Suriname

GLIAG Essay · New Refinery (NR) · 22 October 2026

One Billion Barrels, Zero Refined

The case for refining Golden Lane™ crude in Suriname

The Golden Lane™ has produced its first billion barrels of oil.

Not one of them was refined in the basin that produced it.

Suriname’s first offshore oil arrives in 2028, and with it the first real chance to keep the value at home.

By Drs. M.P.T. Chin-A-Lien, MBA, M.Sc., Ing. Geologist · Golden Lane Investments Advisory Group B.V.

In 2026 ExxonMobil and its partners produced the billionth barrel from Guyana’s Stabroek Block, less than seven years after first oil in December 2019 (ExxonMobil, 2026).

Installed capacity exceeds 900,000 barrels a day, and ExxonMobil Guyana expects national output to pass one million barrels a day before the end of 2026 (OilNOW, May 2026).

Every one of those billion barrels left the basin as crude. None was refined in Guyana. None was refined in Suriname either, where offshore production has not yet begun.

I have worked this basin for more than two decades.

Between 2008 and 2010, as consultant to Staatsolie, I helped bring Tullow, Kosmos, Murphy and Repsol into Suriname’s offshore.

I gave the fairway that runs from Guyana into Suriname its name: the Golden Lane™.

The geology has delivered more than anyone dared to forecast at the time.

What happens to the oil once it reaches the surface has not kept pace.

Just sit at home, complain about the low refining margins, pleasantly watch tv, have a contracted seller sell it as crude and wait till the money flows in the bank accounts?

Or, maybe invent something additional to capture full value.

Figure 1 · Stabroek crude, December 2019 to 2026, million barrels

Produced · ≈1,000

Refined in Guyana or Suriname · 0

Source: ExxonMobil (2026); GLIAG assessment.

1. The billion barrels that left

In 2025 Guyana exported just over 260 million barrels of crude, earning an estimated US$17.8 billion, more than 85% of the country’s export receipts (Government of Guyana, Budget 2026, via OilNOW).

Europe took 62% of Guyana’s crude in 2023 and 66% in 2024 (Reuters, LSEG data).

The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Panama, Spain, Italy and the United States were the main direct destinations in 2025.

Rotterdam acts as the hub from which cargoes move on to refineries across Europe; Panama serves largely as a transshipment point (OilNOW, 2025).

The United States is the other great buyer.

US imports of Guyanese crude averaged close to 200,000 barrels a day in the first ten months of 2025, placing Guyana among the top five net sources of US crude in several months (OilNOW, 2026).

Refiners in Rotterdam and on the US Gulf Coast want this light, sweet crude.

They turn it into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel and keep the refining margin, the skilled jobs and the tax that come with it.

Figure 2 · Where Guyana’s crude went, share of exports, 2024

Europe · 66%

Americas, Asia and other · 34%

Source: Reuters, based on LSEG data; Europe share 62% in 2023.

2. The value that leaks

The basin then buys its fuel back.

Fuel and lubricants were Guyana’s largest import category in the first quarter of 2025, at US$293.2 million (Bureau of Statistics, Guyana).

Over a full year that points to a fuel import bill in the order of US$1.2 billion (GLIAG estimate, first quarter × 4).

Guyana bought US$631 million of petroleum oils from the United States alone in 2025 (UN Comtrade).

One figure in the same trade statistics deserves more attention than its size suggests.

In 2025 Guyana imported US$94.5 million of petroleum oils from Suriname (UN Comtrade).

Staatsolie’s small refinery at Tout Lui Faut, running on Surinamese onshore crude, already sells refined fuel into the country that produces 900,000 barrels of crude a day.

The regional market for Surinamese products exists today.

Put a price on the first billion barrels.

At a refining gross margin of US$10–18 a barrel, they carried US$10–18 billion of margin that was earned outside the basin.

That is illustrative arithmetic, not a forecast, but the order of magnitude is the point.

≈1,000

Million bbl produced, none refined at home

US$17.8bn

Guyana crude exports, 2025

US$293m

Guyana fuel imports, Q1 2025

US$10–18bn

Margin earned abroad, first billion bbl (illustrative)

3. The refinery graveyard, and why this case is different

Any refinery proposal in this region must first answer the graveyard.

More than one million barrels a day of Caribbean refining capacity is shut or idle (Argus, 2021).

I was born in Willemstad, home of the Isla refinery, and I know what a closed refinery does to an island.

Refinery	Capacity	Status
Isla, Curaçao	335,000 b/d	Idle; restart sought by successive investors
San Nicolas, Aruba	235,000 b/d	Shut by Valero in 2012; US$1.1bn Citgo revamp derailed in 2019
Limetree Bay, St Croix (ex-Hovensa)	200,000 b/d (525,000 b/d at peak)	Ordered shut by US EPA in May 2021
Pointe-à-Pierre, Trinidad (Petrotrin)	165,000 b/d	Closed November 2018

Sources: Argus Media (2021); Oil & Gas Journal (2018).

The graveyard has a common thread.

These were large plants built to run imported crude, many of them heavy and sour, for export markets an ocean away.

Petrotrin stated plainly that it closed Pointe-à-Pierre for lack of domestically produced crude (Oil & Gas Journal, 2018).

GLIAG’s New Refinery inverts each of those conditions: a 44,000 barrel-a-day train, light sweet crude produced offshore next door, an existing refinery site, and a domestic and regional market priced at import parity (GLIAG judgement).

4. Guyana hesitates

Guyana has talked about its own refinery since its government invited proposals in October 2022 for a 30,000 barrel-a-day modular plant at the mouth of the Berbice River (OilNOW, 2022).

Four bidders were shortlisted; a 50,000 barrel-a-day proposal from the Dominican Republic followed.

Guyana’s government has ruled out taking a shareholding, and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has said that strategic fuel reserves may remove the economic justification for a refinery altogether (OilNOW). In October 2026 Guyana still has no refinery.

That hesitation leaves the basin’s refining question open.

Suriname holds the stronger hand: a state oil company with 29 years of refinery operations, a crude entitlement from 2028 and a domestic capital market that has already proved itself (GLIAG judgement).

5. Suriname’s turn

GranMorgu, TotalEnergies’ development in Suriname’s Block 58, is designed for 220,000 barrels a day from more than 750 million barrels of oil. It was 40% complete in July 2026, with first oil targeted for the first half of 2028 (OilNOW, July 2026). Staatsolie holds 20% of the block. That entitles Suriname’s state oil company to about 150 million barrels of light, low-sulphur crude from this field alone.

GranMorgu is the first offshore development of the Golden Lane™ in Suriname, not the last. Gas has been found in Block 52, and the fairway that produced Stabroek runs on into Suriname’s deepwater (GLIAG judgement). Each new barrel raises the same question that Guyana has left unanswered for seven years.

The business that follows a refinery is wider than the refinery itself: Jet A-1 for Paramaribo’s airport and regional carriers, low-sulphur bunker fuel for the ships that already pass the coast, LPG for households, and road fuels for Suriname, Guyana and the islands (GLIAG judgement). Staatsolie has the balance sheet to lead it: revenue of US$832 million and pre-tax profit of US$444 million in 2025, and a 2025–2033 bond that Surinamese investors filled with US$515.8 million in March 2025 (Staatsolie).

220 kb/d

GranMorgu design rate

>750 MMbbl

GranMorgu oil

≈150 MMbbl

Staatsolie 20% entitlement

H1 2028

First oil target

6. What GLIAG’s Bankable Case shows

GLIAG has spent four revisions testing whether Suriname can finance a New Refinery on commercial terms, to the standard that the IMF, the World Bank Group, Afreximbank and Equator Principles lenders apply. The first two revisions said no. A 25,000 barrel-a-day greenfield refinery returned 4.6% and had a 0.3% chance of a positive net present value in 5,000 runs. GLIAG reported that result as unbankable and kept working.

The answer changed when the refinery moved inside Tout Lui Faut. Staatsolie has run the site since 1997; its land, permits, utilities, hydrogen and sulphur systems and crew are worth about US$300 million against a plant built from nothing (GLIAG working value). On present-day inputs, a 44,000 barrel-a-day light-crude train there passes a lender’s test with no State support payment and no sovereign guarantee (GLIAG model NR-004, October 2026; nominal terms).

13.3%

Project IRR

15.1%

Equity IRR

80%

Chance of positive NPV, 5,000 runs

99%

Runs with debt cover ≥ 1.30×

US$558m

Senior debt, bankable

19%

Economic return for Suriname

0

Sovereign guarantees

2034

Listing, about half Surinamese-owned

The lenders exist. Suriname ratified its Partnership Agreement with Afreximbank on 5 April 2025, and Afreximbank led Staatsolie’s US$1.6 billion loan for GranMorgu. The case ends in a public listing in 2034, after three years of operations, with about half of the company in Surinamese hands.

7. What this essay does not tell you

The numbers above are the result. The route to them is in GLIAG’s Bankable 5-Pack, and it is not in this essay. The 5-Pack sets out what must be built at Tout Lui Faut, item by item, and what each item costs. It shows how Surinamese savers can own part of the refinery years before it lists, and on what terms. It names the lenders, the capital structure and the crude-supply arithmetic beyond Staatsolie’s entitlement. And it lists the six conditions that must be met before any lender commits.

One of those conditions concerns how crude reaches a refinery on the Suriname River. In an earlier GLIAG revision, the wrong answer to that single question cut the project’s return to 8.4% and made it unbankable.

The New Refinery Bankable 5-Pack (GLIAG-IPO-2026-NR-006): Executive One-Pager, Terms of Reference, Bankable IPO Case, Tout Lui Faut Upgrade, Financial Model Summary and Investor & Lender Deck. Available to the Government of Suriname, Staatsolie, the IMF, the World Bank Group, Afreximbank and qualified lenders and investors on request: info@gliag.com.

Sources. ExxonMobil, “One billion barrels: Guyana’s remarkable journey continues” (2026). OilNOW: Guyana crude exports and Budget 2026 (Jan 2026); export destinations (2025); US imports of Guyanese crude (2026); Routledge on one million b/d (May 2026); GranMorgu progress (Jul 2026); Guyana refinery RFP and strategic reserves (2022–2026). Reuters/LSEG, Guyana crude to Europe (2023–2024). Bureau of Statistics Guyana, External Trade Q1 2025. UN Comtrade via Trading Economics (2025). Argus Media, Caribbean refining (2021). Oil & Gas Journal, Petrotrin closure (2018). Staatsolie, 2025 accounts and bond. GLIAG model GLIAG-FM-2026-NR-004 (Oct 2026).

Drs. M.P.T. Chin-A-Lien, MBA, M.Sc., Ing. Geologist

AAPG Certified Professional Geologist Nr. 5201-1996 · EFG Chartered European Geologist Nr. 92-1996 · AIEN Energy Negotiator (June 2021)

Principal Founding Partner, Managing Partner and Chief Architect · Golden Lane Investments Advisory Group B.V. (GLIAG B.V.) · Zoetermeer/Delft & Paramaribo · petroleumenergyinsights.com · info@gliag.com

Disclaimer and legal notice

1. No advice. This essay is analysis, not investment, legal, tax or accounting advice. Readers should take their own professional advice.

2. No offer or solicitation. Nothing in this essay is an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Any offer would be made only by a prospectus approved by the competent authority.

3. Independence of analysis. GLIAG prepared this analysis independently. It is not commissioned, reviewed or endorsed by the Government of Suriname, the Government of Guyana, Staatsolie, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Afreximbank or any institution named.

4. Forward-looking statements. Projections, estimates and model results depend on assumptions that may prove wrong. Actual results may differ materially.

© 2026 Golden Lane Investments Advisory Group B.V. and Drs. M.P.T. Chin-A-Lien. All rights reserved. Golden Lane™, GLIAGOGRAPH™, Sovereign Molecule™, Sovereign Conversion Capacity™ and Caribbean Gas Arc™ are trademarks of GLIAG. The rightsholder expressly reserves this work from text and data mining, including for the training of artificial-intelligence and machine-learning systems, under Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790.

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