The 5th annual meeting of the New Petroleum Producers Discussion Group was hosted by Staatsolie in Suriname and co-organized with the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Natural Resource Governance Institute.
The international group meeting focused on creating investment terms that incentivize oil companies to perform financially and operationally to the highest standards as well as contract administration and operational oversight issues. At the meeting, the group established three working groups, which aim to produce practical toolkits helping policymakers and regulators in the oversight of oil and gas operations.
During the National Seminar for Suriname, key government and non-governmental stakeholders came together to discuss Suriname’s evolving petroleum sector such as the possible impact of an oil discovery on Suriname’s development path, realistic assessments of local content opportunities and governance challenges.
The meeting included training sessions on assessing environmental impacts, understanding the effect of evolving global climate policy on petroleum projects, establishing a fit-for-purpose NOC, and ensuring effective project oversight. The Van Meurs Corporation also made its World Fiscal Model freely available to emerging producer governments in the group. A two-day course was offered to support governments’ use of the model and enable them to compare their fiscal model to other jurisdictions, calculate expected cash flow and assess bids in licensing.
Funding for this event was generously provided by the Ford Foundation, Staatsolie, Statoil, Tullow Oil, Kosmos Energy, Clyde & Co, the World Bank and project supporters, Shell and ExxonMobil.
A summary of the Annual Meeting is available at the link below.