TotalEnergies and APA Corporation have sanctioned the $26 billion GranMorgu development offshore Suriname, handing state firm Staatsolie a 20% stake bought with a $1.6 billion loan and a March 2025 bond sale. Petronas is meanwhile expanding a separate discovery streak next door in Block 52, with a final investment decision due before the end of 2026.
TotalEnergies and partner APA Corporation have approved a final investment decision on the $26 billion GranMorgu project in offshore Block 58, restructuring the venture so operator TotalEnergies and APA each hold 40%, with state-controlled Staatsolie taking the remaining 20%. Staatsolie financed its share with a $1.6 billion loan from a banking consortium and a March 2025 bond issue, exercising rights set out in its Block 52 production-sharing contract.
GranMorgu targets 2028 start-up
The project's floating production, storage and offloading vessel is due online in 2028 with capacity for 220,000 barrels of oil per day. It will draw on the Sapakara and Krabdagu discoveries, which hold estimated recoverable resources of 760 million barrels of crude oil.
GranMorgu is expected to generate up to $26 billion in fiscal income for the country. TotalEnergies is building the FPSO to connect to satellite fields once the two reservoirs are drained, extending the vessel's working life.
Light, sweet crude and a low-carbon design
TotalEnergies is designing GranMorgu as an all-electric FPSO with emission monitoring, and the company estimates less than 16 kilograms of carbon will be emitted per barrel produced, below the global upstream average of 17 to 18 kilograms. That still trails Brazil's offshore pre-salt output, at around 10 to 12 kilograms, and Guyana's, as low as nine kilograms. The crude at the Sapakara South 1 well tested at 34 degrees API gravity, while a 2022 flow test at Krabdagu measured 35 to 37 degrees, positioning it to draw the same refiner demand that has fueled Guyana's crude oil boom.
Petronas presses ahead in Block 52
Next door, Malaysia's Petronas operates Block 52 with an 80% working interest against Staatsolie's 20%, a stake the state firm acquired after ExxonMobil exited the block in November 2024. The partners reached a Declaration of Commerciality for the Sloanea field in November 2025, built on the Sloanea-1 discovery Petronas made in 2020.
By the end of June 2026, Petronas had logged eight discoveries in the block's "Golden Lane," believed to extend from Guyana's Stabroek trend, most recently at the Caiman-1 and Swartzia Aspasia Complex-1 wells, alongside the Roystonea-2 appraisal well. Petronas upstream chief Mohd Jukris Abdul Wahab said a final investment decision on Block 52 is planned before the end of 2026.
Source: Oilprice.com
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