Oil Billionaires: what it means for Suriname's oil economy.
Oil Billionaires: First Oil in Guyana
On 20 December 2019, ExxonMobil's Liza Destiny FPSO produced the first oil from Guyana's Stabroek Block. It was a historic moment for a country with a GDP of approximately $3.5 billion and a population of under 800,000. By 2023, Guyana's GDP had tripled. By 2024, it was growing at over 40 percent per year — the fastest in the world by a margin that made the statistic seem implausible until you looked at the base numbers.
The wealth generated by Stabroek is enormous by any relative measure. ExxonMobil's production share alone from Guyana operations generates multi-billion dollar annual revenues. Hess Corporation's equity stake in the block became the subject of a contested acquisition battle between ExxonMobil and Chevron, which ultimately valued the asset at over $28 billion. The block's total recoverable resources, now estimated at over 11 billion barrels, make it one of the most significant oil discoveries of the 21st century.
Who Became Wealthy
The question of who became Guyana's first oil billionaires is easier to answer than the question of who should have. ExxonMobil's shareholders — predominantly American and international institutional investors — captured the largest share of the value created by Stabroek's development. Hess Corporation shareholders, again predominantly American, became dramatically wealthier as the acquisition premium reflected in Chevron's offer materialised.
The Guyanese state, through its vehicle the Natural Resources Fund, captured a meaningful but structurally limited share. The royalty and profit oil terms agreed in the original production sharing contract — negotiated in 1999, before the scale of the discovery was known — are widely considered unfavourable to Guyana, a view that the government has publicly endorsed in its calls for contract renegotiation.
Individual Guyanese citizens benefited from the employment and service economy growth that accompanied the oil boom. But the first billionaires — the individuals whose personal net worth was transformed by the Stabroek development — were not Guyanese. They were the founders and major shareholders of the international operators.
The Suriname Parallel
Suriname's Block 58 terms, negotiated more recently and with the benefit of Guyana's public debate about PSC fairness, are generally considered more favourable to the state. Staatsolie's 20 percent equity stake was secured on terms that give the government meaningful upside. The royalty framework has been updated.
But the lesson from Guyana is not primarily about PSC terms. It is about the supply chain, the local equity positions in ancillary businesses, and the sovereign wealth fund framework for managing inflows. These are the mechanisms through which oil wealth either stays in the country or passes through it. Suriname is making those decisions now.
Sources & further reading
Oil Billionaires — primary source: ExxonMobil Guyana. Related Wimpel coverage: The Case for Caribbean Frontier Markets in 2025.