Sultana Featured in Financial Times Documentary on Oil Frontiers and Energy Security

May 14, 2026

Financial Times

Farhana Sultana

Geography & the Environment Department

Environmental Conflict and Collaboration

South Asia Center

Economic Policy

Energy

Government

International Affairs

Latin America & the Caribbean

Natural Resources

Financial Times

Farhana Sultana

Suriname, South America's smallest and greenest country, is tying its future to a $10.5 billion offshore oil development led by TotalEnergies. As energy markets around the world reel from wars with Russia and Iran, offshore explorations like this have become increasingly important, despite the energy transition.

“We should be able to say, hey, we have renewables, we have global climate finance, we have investments away from fossil fuels. Those are the transitions collectively in the production and the consumption side that have to come together,” says Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment.

“But we have a distorted global economic system that rewards fossil fuel extraction, that rewards fossil fuel dependency. And as a result, it is harder for smaller countries that are worried about their own energy security, their own economic security, their own social social development to forgo an oil discovery,” she says.

Watch the full Financial Times documentary film, “Why Big Oil is opening new frontiers.” (Sultana's contributions are at 12:11 and 18:07)