The Mineral and Petroleum Deposits of Suriname and the Golden Lane: a Metallogenic Stratigraphy

Drs. M.P.T. Chin-A-Lien, MBA, M.Sc., Ing. Geologist · Golden Lane Investments Advisory Group B.V. (GLIAG), Zoetermeer & Paramaribo · ORCID iD 0009-0007-1649-602X

A metallogenic stratigraphy of the Guiana Shield and the Guyana–Suriname Basin

In brief

Suriname holds about 20 million ounces of gold in its two large mines, 9.6 million of it in reserve, more than half a billion tonnes of unmined plateau bauxite, a billion barrels of heavy oil in place onshore, and a deep-water discovery inventory that Wood Mackenzie puts at more than 2.4 billion barrels of liquids and 12.5 trillion cubic feet of gas. Each of these deposits sits in a different formation, and each formation belongs to a different chapter of two billion years of Guiana Shield history. This essay lists the deposits, names their host formations, gives the published numbers, and places them in one metallogenic stratigraphic column.

It is the quantitative companion to Suriname: a Palimpsest of Two Billion Years (GLIAG-ESS-2026-SUR-GEO-02), whose treasure-map table (its Section 3) is the backbone here. That essay told the geological story in six acts; this one keeps the six acts and asks, for each, three questions: what was made, where it sits, and how much of it there is.

Key numbers. Classes differ: a reserve is not a resource, and oil in place is neither. Section 1 explains how to read them.

The cover. The GLIAGOGRAPH poster “The Geological Watch: Roraima, Deep Time of the Guiana Shield” draws the shield in six panels, from an Archean nucleus older than 2.8 Ga to the present-day surface. One caveat applies to Suriname. Its exposed basement is entirely Paleoproterozoic, about 2.26–1.95 Ga; Archean rocks occur only in the neighbouring Imataca Complex of Venezuela and the Amapá block of Brazil (Kroonenberg et al., 2016). The poster’s panel II (Paleoproterozoic orogeny) corresponds to Acts I–IV of GEO-02, panel III (Roraima) to Act V, and panels IV–VI (Mesozoic rifting, Atlantic margin, present-day surface) to Act VI.

1 · Reading the column as a ledger

A stratigraphic column is usually a record of time. Here it is also a ledger. Each row is a formation; each formation has a mineral system; each system has, or lacks, a published number. Three rules keep the ledger honest.

Rule one: do not add classes. Mining companies report under codes aligned with the CRIRSCO template (NI 43-101, JORC, the Chinese and US SEC S-K 1300 rules): a mineral reserve is the economically mineable part of a measured or indicated resource, and an inferred resource is a geological estimate too uncertain to mine against (CRIRSCO). Oil companies use the SPE Petroleum Resources Management System: reserves are commercial, contingent resources are discovered but not yet commercial, and oil in place is the whole accumulation, of which only a fraction is ever recovered (SPE-PRMS, 2018). Stabroek’s 11 Bboe is a recoverable resource; Tambaredjo’s 1 Bbbl is oil in place; Merian’s 4.5 Moz is a reserve. They sit side by side in this essay but are never summed.

Rule two: date every number. Reserves move with price and drilling. Merian’s reserve is calculated at US$1,500/oz (Newmont, 2026); in 2014 the same mine carried about 4.2 Moz and Rosebel 8.6 Moz (Kioe-A-Sen et al., 2016). All figures here are dated, mostly to 31 December 2025.

Rule three: separate the host from the age of enrichment. Bakhuis bauxite sits on 2.07–2.05 Ga granulite but formed in the Paleogene, almost two billion years later. The column therefore shows bauxite twice: once in the row of its parent rock, once in the row of its weathering. The same logic applies to the Golden Lane: the sand is shield-derived, the reservoir is Late Cretaceous.

2 · Acts I–II: orogenic gold and the greenstone-belt metals

Geological frame. The Marowijne Greenstone Belt is Suriname’s gold province. Its lower unit, the Paramaka Formation, consists of metabasalts and island-arc volcanics of about 2.18–2.13 Ga, intruded by the tonalite–trondhjemite–granodiorite (TTG) domes of the Kabel Tonalite and by the Bemau ultramafic bodies. It is overlain by the turbidites of the Armina Formation, deposited after 2,127 Ma, and by the fluvial, magnetite-rich sands of the Rosebel Formation, laid down in pull-apart basins after 2,115 Ma (Kroonenberg et al., 2016). Gold in Suriname is essentially restricted to this belt (Kioe-A-Sen et al., 2016).

Mineral system. The deposits are orogenic: metamorphic fluids, released as the greenstone pile was folded and heated during the Trans-Amazonian collision, carried gold up crustal-scale shear zones and dropped it in quartz-carbonate veins and breccias where pressure fell or the fluid reacted with iron-rich or carbon-rich wall rock. At Rosebel most veins opened during late dextral shearing at about 2.07–2.06 Ga (Daoust et al., 2011, in Kroonenberg et al., 2016). The newly described Overman deposit near Rosebel dates the system at 2.08–2.03 Ga, places gold in silicified Armina meta-sediments with carbonaceous phyllites, records about 500 °C greenschist conditions and an arsenic signature, and draws a direct analogy with the Ashanti belt of Ghana (Kioe-A-Sen et al., 2025). The analogy matters: Ashanti and the Marowijne belt lay on either side of the same Paleoproterozoic orogen before the Atlantic opened.

Table 1. Gold deposits of the Marowijne belt and their Guyana counterparts. Reserves and resources at 31 December 2025 unless stated; Merian reserve at US$1,500/oz (Newmont, 2026).

Numbers. Rosebel, operated by Zijin Gold since 2023, reported at end-2025 a resource of 11.58 Moz at 0.82 g/t and a reserve of 5.13 Moz, produced 266 koz in 2025 at an all-in sustaining cost of US$1,573/oz, and is expanding towards about 18 Mtpa of processing and roughly 12 t of gold a year (Zijin Gold, 2026; Zijin, 2026). Merian’s reserve is 129.4 Mt at 1.09 g/t, 4.5 Moz, with a further 3.9 Moz of resource exclusive of reserve (Newmont, 2026; Newmont operations). Together the two mines carry about 9.6 Moz of reserve, some 300 t of gold, and, with resources, about 20 Moz in total.

National output, as reported by the USGS, rose from 20,871 kg in 2020 to 31,995 kg in 2023 and stood at 27,668 kg in 2024 (USGS). The Central Bank figures in the EITI report split 2024 into Rosebel 8,055 kg, Newmont 8,545 kg and small-scale mining 11,042 kg (EITI Suriname, 2026). Small-scale miners therefore produce as much gold as either large mine, mostly from alluvial and saprolite sources reworked from the same Act II veins. The sources do not fully agree: the Central Bank gives 30,107 kg for 2023 against the USGS 31,995 kg, and a 12.6 t gap between gold-export statistics was reported for 2024 (Ground News summary).

Other Act I–II metals. The Paramaka volcanic pile carries chemical sediments: itabirite (banded iron formation) at Tapaje Creek, estimated at 60 Mt at 50–70% Fe, and gondite manganese at Blommestein, about 700 kt at 24% Mn plus 500 kt at 28%, with further manganese at Tapanahony (about 500 kt at ~40%) and the Plet ridge (150 kt at 35%) (World Bank sector review; ECLAC). The Bemau ultramafics host chromite. The two-mica Patamacca granites that intruded the Armina turbidites carry Li–Sn–Ta–Be pegmatites; at Jorka Creek about 9 t of tantalite were recovered in 1953–55 and about 1,700 t of amblygonite (a lithium phosphate) in 1961–62 (World Bank). These are historical figures, not reserves.

The rule of Acts I–II is simple: the gold is where the shear zones cut the Paramaka basalts and the Armina turbidites. The same belt, on the same structures, runs west into Guyana as the Barama–Mazaruni and east into French Guiana.

Across the border. In Guyana, the same Paleoproterozoic greenstone terrane hosts Oko West, where G Mining Ventures reports 4.64 Moz of probable reserve at 1.89 g/t and plans first gold in the second half of 2027 (G Mining Ventures, 2026), and Aurora, where Zijin produced 4.5 t in 2025 (Zijin, 2026). The Golden Lane is therefore a gold lane onshore before it is an oil lane offshore: the same shield, on both sides of the Corantijn, produced both.

3 · Acts III–IV: the Bakhuis furnace and the felsic flare-up

Act III. The Bakhuis Granulite Belt, a 25 km by 95 km north-east-trending horst in western Suriname, exposes banded granulites and sillimanite gneisses metamorphosed at ultra-high temperature, 950–1,050 °C, between 2.07 and 2.05 Ga (Kroonenberg et al., 2016; Monsels, 2016). Its metallic endowment is modest in the primary rock: the K/3 copper–phosphate prospect, monazite and REE indications, and a lateritic iron cap estimated about 1963 at some 5 Gt at 34–55% Fe, with a further 2 Gt at Blommestein (World Bank; SITA). Its real value is as the parent rock of the largest bauxite resource in the country, treated in Section 5.

Act IV. Between 1.99 and 1.95 Ga a felsic flare-up produced the Dalbana ignimbrites, the Sipaliwini and Wonotobo granites, the Kabalebo charnockites and the Lucie gabbro, dated at 1985 ± 4 Ma (Kroonenberg et al., 2016). The Lucie gabbronorites produced the magnetic “butterfly” anomalies drilled for Cu–Ni–Cr in the 1970s, without a published resource. Cassiterite-bearing pegmatites accompany the Sipaliwini granites. For petroleum the Younger granites matter more than their metals: quartz-rich and widely exposed, they are part of the hinterland that later fed the sand of the Golden Lane.

4 · Act V: Roraima, Avanavero and Muri

Roraima Supergroup. The quartz sandstones and conglomerates of the Tafelberg, about 700 m thick in Suriname, rest on a reddish paleosol over Wonotobo and Sipaliwini granites. Volcanic ashes in the Roraima of Brazil give 1873 ± 3 Ma (Kroonenberg et al., 2016). In Guyana and Venezuela the Roraima and its reworked gravels host alluvial diamonds; Guyana’s diamond fields are traced to conglomerates younger than 1.98 Ga (Bassoo et al., 2021). Suriname has recorded at least 290 small stones since 1880, 230 of them at Rosebel, the largest 0.8 ct (World Bank). In metallogenic terms, Roraima is less a deposit than a quartz factory: twice-cycled sand that erosion would later deliver to the Atlantic margin.

Avanavero Dolerite. Dykes and sills of 50 m to 1 km thickness cut all older units and intrude the Roraima. The most precise age is 1794.5 ± 1.6 Ma on baddeleyite, and the suite is thought to form a large igneous province of more than 300,000 km2 and at least 30,000 km3 of magma (Kroonenberg et al., 2016). The dykes stand out as laterite-capped ridges over 100 km long, and their age matches a date from the Omai gold mine in Guyana (Norcross et al., 2000, in Kroonenberg et al., 2016): a reminder that not all shield gold is Trans-Amazonian.

Muri Alkaline Complex. On the Brazilian border in the far south-west, nepheline syenite and tinguaite bodies of about 1.03–1.09 Ga, emplaced along Grenvillian shear zones, are accompanied by a hill believed to be underlain by carbonatite. Its laterite cap is high in Nb and Sr and the soil below is rich in REE phosphates (Kroonenberg et al., 2016). No resource has been published. Muri is the only known carbonatite-type critical-mineral target in Suriname and is discussed in the author’s Critical Raw Materials essay.

The 800-million-year gap. Between about 1.0 Ga and the Early Jurassic, Suriname has no rock record. The column shows the gap honestly. It is a gap in deposition, not in history: the shield was eroding, and the erosion products went elsewhere until the Atlantic opened.

5 · Bauxite and kaolin: two parent rocks, one weathering event

Suriname’s bauxite formed by intense tropical weathering, mainly during the Late Eocene–Oligocene “bauxite hiatus”, a long period of non-deposition on the coastal plain, and on the Main Aluminous Laterite Level of the shield (Monsels, 2016). Two parent rocks gave two ore types.

Coastal bauxite formed on the kaolinitic sands and clays of the upper Onverdacht Formation, the continental, time-equivalent facies of the deltaic Saramacca Formation and the marine Alliance Formation (coastal-plain bauxite study, Utrecht University). It averages 6 m thick, with only 2% Fe₂O₃, 5–7% SiO₂ and more than 50% available alumina; deposits occur at surface or buried under up to 40 m of younger sediment. Plateau bauxite formed on intermediate to basic Precambrian rocks at 250–650 m elevation; it averages 4 m thick with little overburden, 15–20% Fe₂O₃, 2–4% SiO₂ and about 45% available alumina (Monsels, 2016).

Table 2. Bauxite deposits of Suriname, after Monsels (2016). An independent Bakhuis estimate of 198 Mt at 48.6% Al₂O₃, 4.6 m thick and 63% gibbsite, is attributed to BHP Billiton’s 2009 work (PorterGeo).

Production history. Moengo was found in 1915 and mined from 1916; Paranam opened in 1941 (Monsels, 2016). In the mid-1950s Suriname produced about 3.4 Mt a year, roughly a quarter of world output, and production peaked at 7.2 Mt in 1974 (World Bank, 1980). Guyana and Suriname together supplied about half the world’s bauxite around 1945–55 (PorterGeo). Output was 2.7 Mt in 2014 and 1.6 Mt in 2015, and stopped when the Paranam refinery closed in November 2015 because the accessible coastal deposits were depleted (USGS Minerals Yearbook 2017–18; Monsels, 2016).

Kaolin underlies the bauxite at Moengo and Onverdacht as the lower, incompletely weathered part of the same profile (World Bank). No modern resource is published. The point for the column is that bauxite and kaolin are one horizon at two stages of weathering, both resting on the top of the Paleocene–Early Eocene sediments that, a few hundred metres down-dip, hold the Tambaredjo oil.

6 · Act VI: the petroleum system of the Guyana–Suriname Basin

Rift and source. The basin opened in two steps: Central Atlantic rifting about 200 Ma, recorded onshore by the Nickerie and Commewijne grabens and the CAMP-related Apatoe dykes (198–196 Ma), then the Equatorial Atlantic opening in the Early Cretaceous. Jurassic Demerara Formation carbonates (Sinemurian–Valanginian) and the Galibi Formation (Hauterivian–Barremian) fill the early basin (Staatsolie GeoAtlas, 2025). The main source rock is the Albian–Turonian Caledonia Formation, the equivalent of the Canje Formation of Guyana, deposited during the oceanic anoxic events. In distal well penetrations the Cenomanian–Turonian interval has TOC above 1.5% and hydrogen index above 350 mg HC/g TOC (GeoAtlas); Canje TOC is typically 2–5% and reaches 20% at ODP Leg 207 (ECO Atlantic, 2020). An older Aptian source extends farther into offshore Suriname (Shipper, Mann & Pepper, 2026).

Reservoirs. Two reservoir systems share that source. Offshore, Late Cretaceous slope-channel and basin-floor fans of Santonian to Maastrichtian age form the Golden Lane. At Liza, five stacked Maastrichtian reservoirs (A–E) have 20–30% porosity and 100–2,000 mD permeability, and the discovery well found 295 ft (90 m) of net pay (Oil & Gas Journal). In Block 58, Sapakara West-1 found 79 m of Campanian oil (35–40° API) and 36 m of Santonian oil (40–45° API); Maka Central-1 found 50 m and 73 m (GEO ExPro). Onshore, the Paleocene T-sands at the base of the Saramacca Formation rest unconformably on the Cretaceous Nickerie Formation and are sealed by Eocene clays; the T1 sand has 38% porosity and 7 darcy permeability (Oil & Gas Journal; GeoAtlas). The oil migrated at least 200 km up-dip from the offshore kitchen (Offshore Magazine).

Table 3. Petroleum accumulations of the Guyana–Suriname Basin. The volumes belong to different PRMS classes and must not be added.

The onshore ledger. Staatsolie began production on 25 November 1982 at 200 barrels a day and celebrated its 100 millionth barrel on 22 July 2013 (Staatsolie history). By 2014 about 110 MMbbl had been produced at a recovery factor near 20% (Staatsolie Vision 2030, NJG 2016). Summing the annual figures (compiled public series), GLIAG estimates about 171 MMbbl produced by the end of 2024. Produced plus remaining reserve, about 275 MMbbl, implies an ultimate recovery near 27% of the 1 Bbbl in place, above the earlier 20%, which is consistent with the steam-stimulation and infill programmes. The heavy, biodegraded Saramacca crude (15.8° API, 480 cSt at 50 °C) is a shallow, cooled remnant of the same Cretaceous charge that fills the deep-water fans (GeoAtlas).

The offshore ledger. In Guyana, ExxonMobil reports just under 11 Bboe discovered in Stabroek and its one billionth barrel produced on 28 September 2026 (ExxonMobil, 2026); the government cites 11.6 Bbbl and a further discovery, Rockhead-1, in 2026 (Kaieteur News). In Suriname, GranMorgu is under construction with 32 development wells planned (GeoAtlas), PETRONAS reports more than 1 Bboe in eight wells in Block 52 (Reuters, June 2026), and Sloanea is being taken towards a floating LNG scheme of 1.2 or 2.4 Mtpa with a decision targeted for end-2026 (Industrial Info). Converted at 6 Mcf per barrel of oil equivalent, the Wood Mackenzie inventory is about 4.5 Bboe, some 40% of Stabroek. The difference is the subject of the author’s Golden Lane Revealed and Kitchen and Receiver of ACT Charge essays.

7 · The young coastal plain: industrial minerals

Above the bauxite hiatus the coastal plain records the Neogene and Quaternary: the Coesewijne Formation (Miocene), the Zanderij Formation of the savanna belt (Pliocene) with its coarse white sands and kaolinitic loams, the Pleistocene Coropina Formation of the Old Coastal Plain, and the Holocene Coronie and Mara Formations of the Young Coastal Plain, whose chenier ridges of shell sand were long the country’s lime source (Wong, 1986; GEUS, 2016). These units supply construction sand, white sand, clay and groundwater; their volumes are not published. Cement output is estimated at about 50 kt a year (USGS). Offshore, the Holocene mud belt is fed by the Amazon, not by the shield: the youngest sediment of the Golden Lane comes from outside it.

8 · Synthesis: five metallogenic rules

1. Each act made one family of deposits. Gold belongs to Acts I–II and lives in the greenstone belt; plateau bauxite to Act III parent rocks and Paleogene weathering; Nb–REE and diamonds to Act V; coastal bauxite, kaolin and the onshore oil to the Paleocene–Eocene coastal plain; and the light oil and gas of the Golden Lane to the Late Cretaceous Atlantic margin.

2. Structure is inherited. North-east to south-west Paleoproterozoic shear zones, reactivated as Grenvillian mylonites and as Mesozoic faults of the Bakhuis horst, controlled gold-bearing fluids, the uplift that exposed the granulites to weathering, and the entry points of Cretaceous rivers. A single structural map serves gold, bauxite and oil exploration.

3. Weathering is a second ore-forming event. The Paleogene laterite turned granulite into bauxite, reworked gold into saprolite and alluvium for the small-scale miners, and capped the Avanavero dykes and the Muri carbonatite. Much of Suriname’s mineral wealth is a Cenozoic product of Paleoproterozoic rock.

4. One source, two oil fields. The Albian–Turonian Caledonia (Canje) shales charged both the deep-water fans and, after long-distance migration, the onshore Paleocene sands. The light oil of Sapakara and the heavy oil of Tambaredjo are the same charge at different temperatures and depths of burial.

5. The ledger is unbalanced in its knowledge, not in its endowment. Gold and petroleum have modern, audited figures; bauxite rests on 1960s–2000s exploration; iron, manganese, tantalum and Nb–REE rest on historical estimates or none at all. The gap is a data gap. A national airborne magnetic and radiometric survey, as argued in GEO-02, would serve all rows of the column at once.

Treasure map revisited: formation, system and quantity

The table extends the treasure map of GEO-02, Section 3 with the quantities assembled here.

Table 4. Insert 2 of GEO-02, revisited with quantities. Classes and dates as in Tables 1–3.

Evidence register

FACT

Rosebel end-2025 reserve 5,127 koz and resource 11,577 koz @ 0.82 g/t; 266 koz in 2025 (Zijin Gold, 2026). Merian reserve 129.4 Mt @ 1.09 g/t, 4.5 Moz (Newmont, 2026). National gold output 27,668 kg in 2024 (USGS); small-scale 11,042 kg (EITI, 2026). Bakhuis >500 Mt @ 34% available alumina; 580 Mt unexploited bauxite; coastal belt mined out (Monsels, 2016). Bauxite peak 7.2 Mt in 1974 (World Bank, 1980). Tambaredjo STOIIP ~1 Bbbl, 104.5 MMbbl remaining at end-2024 (GeoAtlas, 2025). GranMorgu >750 MMbbl, FID 1 October 2024; Stabroek just under 11 Bboe; Sloanea 2.5 Tcf, commercial 11 November 2025.

MISSING

Rosebel Gold Mines reports 306,535 oz for 2025, against 266 koz in Zijin Gold’s statement; the difference may reflect attribution or reporting basis and is not resolved here. Central Bank and USGS gold totals differ for 2023, and a 12.6 t export-statistics gap was reported for 2024. No modern, code-compliant resource exists for Bakhuis or Nassau bauxite, iron, manganese, tantalum, kaolin or Muri Nb–REE. Cumulative onshore oil production is a GLIAG sum of annual figures, not a Staatsolie statement. Block 52 and Wood Mackenzie volumes are not broken down by PRMS class. Aurora reserves are not quoted here.

GLIAG JUDGEMENT

Gold and petroleum are the two rows of the column with bankable numbers; bauxite is a large but dated resource whose economics depend on infrastructure and on the Nassau and Bakhuis environmental questions. The single most valuable public investment for the whole column is a national aerogeophysical survey with modern dating. The onshore recovery factor appears to be rising towards 27%, which supports continued enhanced-recovery work at Tambaredjo.

TRIGGER

Rosebel expansion results and Zijin’s 2026 reserve statement; GranMorgu first oil in 2028; a Sloanea FLNG decision; any NI 43-101 or JORC report on Bakhuis bauxite or Muri; a national airborne survey; reconciliation of Central Bank and USGS gold statistics.

Glossary for the non-specialist

Metallogeny: the study of how, where and when ore deposits form, in relation to the geological history of a region.

Orogenic gold: gold deposited from hot metamorphic fluids in quartz veins along shear zones during mountain building.

Reserve and resource: a resource is an estimate of what is in the ground; a reserve is the part that can be mined or produced economically.

STOIIP: stock-tank oil initially in place: all the oil in a reservoir before production, of which only a part is recoverable.

Bauxite: aluminium ore formed by deep tropical weathering; mostly the mineral gibbsite in Suriname.

Laterite: an iron- and aluminium-rich weathering crust formed in hot, wet climates.

Itabirite and gondite: metamorphosed iron-rich and manganese-rich chemical sediments, respectively.

Turbidite fan: a body of sand laid down by underwater avalanches at the foot of the continental slope; the reservoirs of the Golden Lane.

Source rock: an organic-rich mudstone that generates oil and gas when buried and heated.

Boe: barrel of oil equivalent; here gas is converted at 6,000 cubic feet per barrel.

The author’s related essays

Suriname: a Palimpsest of Two Billion Years (GLIAG-ESS-2026-SUR-GEO-02), the geological companion to this essay

The Golden Lane Revealed: Why Santonian–Maastrichtian Submarine Fans Made Suriname a World-Class Deep-Water Province

Golden Lane: Kitchen and Receiver of ACT Charge

The Golden Lane, Guyana: From Deep-Water Turbidite Petroleum Systems to FPSO-Driven National Revenue

Tambaredjo-II: The Next Big Discovery in Oil

Critical Raw Materials: Suriname’s Onshore and Offshore Potential

Golden Lane™ Crude: A Game Changer for Caribbean Refineries

Petroleum & Energy Insights: all GLIAG essays

References

All links accessed 8 November 2026. Company figures are quoted from the companies’ own statements.

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Zijin Mining (2026). Annual report 2025 (Aurora production). Link

About the author

Drs. M.P.T. Chin-A-Lien, MBA, M.Sc., Ing. Geologist. Certified Petroleum Geologist Nr. 5201-1996 (AAPG) · Chartered European Geologist Nr. 92-1996 (EFG) · Energy Negotiator, June 2021 (AIEN). Principal Founding Partner & Chief Architect, Golden Lane Investments Advisory Group B.V. (GLIAG), Zoetermeer & Paramaribo · petroleumenergyinsights.com · ORCID 0009-0007-1649-602X. Petroleum and energy adviser with nearly five decades of international experience; co-discoverer of the Ceuta field in Lake Maracaibo; originator of the term Golden Lane for the Guyana–Suriname Basin (2008); consultant to Staatsolie in 2008–2010.

Disclaimer and legal notice

1. No advice. This essay is published for information, education and research. It is not investment, legal, engineering or mining advice; no party should rely on it for decisions without independent verification.

2. No offer or solicitation. Nothing in this essay is an offer, solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, licence, concession or interest.

3. Independence of analysis. The analysis is the author’s own, based on the public sources cited. GLIAG is not a sponsor, bidder or equity holder in any project mentioned. Company figures are quoted from the companies’ own releases; reserve and resource classes are as reported.

4. Forward-looking statements. Statements about future production, first oil, expansions, surveys or project decisions are judgements subject to uncertainty and may not come true.

Copyright, licence and intellectual property. © 2026 Marcel P.T. Chin-A-Lien and GLIAG (Golden Lane Investments Advisory Group B.V.). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0. The cover artwork “The Geological Watch” (GLIAG-GGR-2026-11-08-ROR-001) is proprietary GLIAG artwork and is excluded from the CC licence; reproduction requires written permission. Golden Lane™ and GLIAGOGRAPH™ are GLIAG trademarks. Cite as: Chin-A-Lien, M.P.T. (2026). The Mineral and Petroleum Deposits of Suriname and the Golden Lane: a Metallogenic Stratigraphy. GLIAG, GLIAG-ESS-2026-SUR-GEO-03, Version 1.0. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24046104. Web edition: petroleumenergyinsights.com. The map in Figure 2 is redrawn from Kroonenberg et al. (2016) under CC BY 4.0. Under Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 and Article 15o of the Dutch Auteurswet, the rightsholder expressly reserves this work from text and data mining, including the training of artificial-intelligence models, without prior written permission.

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