The United States Geological Survey (USGS) ranks the Guyana Suriname Basin 2nd in the world for prospectivity among the world’s unexplored basins and 12th for oil among all the world’s basins – explored and unexplored. The mean (P50) undiscovered resource potential is estimated at 15.2 billion bbls.
- 117 fields >1 million bbls of recoverable oil
- 24 fields with >100 million bbls of recoverable oil (elephants)
- 6 fields have >500 million bbls of recoverable oil (giants)
- 83% of the resource in offshore Lower Tertiary to Cretaceous turbidite fans—the #1 play type in circum-Atlantic basins such as offshore Brazil and West Africa
- Ranks 27th for gas in the world with undiscovered resource potential of 42 trillion cubic ft in 30 fields
- Ranks 15th in the world for undiscovered oil and gas potential
Mean
Undiscovered Oil
| Rank |
Country |
bbls |
| Source:
USGS World Petroleum Assessment 2000 |
| 1 |
Saudi
Arabia |
87.1 |
| 2 |
USA |
83.0 |
| 3 |
Russia |
77.4 |
| 4 |
Iran |
53.1 |
| 5 |
Greenland |
47.1 |
| 6 |
Brazil |
46.7 |
| 7 |
Iraq |
45.1 |
| 8 |
Nigeria |
37.6 |
| 9 |
Kazakhstan |
21.1 |
| 10 |
Mexico |
20.6 |
| 11 |
Venezuela |
19.7 |
| 12 |
Guyana-Suriname |
15.2 |
| 13 |
Angola |
14.5 |
| 22 |
UK |
6.3 |
| 35 |
Canada |
2.8 |