2007-05-26 04:15:45 -

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) _ Officials from the U.N.'s maritime body will travel to Guyana and Suriname next week to determine the boundaries of a potentially oil- and gas-rich basin off the two small South American nations' coasts, a government statement said Friday.
Using a survey vessel to scan the sea bottom, researchers from the Hamburg,

Germany-based International Law of the Sea Tribunal will examine the maritime border as the U.N. body prepares to make its final ruling on a long-running dispute between the two neighbors, according to a statement from Guyana's foreign ministry.
The dispute once brought Guyana and Suriname close to war and has blocked fuel exploration in the area.
The two South American nations have been locked in the disagreement over ownership of hundreds of square miles (square kilometers) of untapped territory running from the nations' land border at the coast out to the limit of their territorial waters.
Industry experts have estimated that the Guyana-Suriname Basin may hold as much as 15 billion barrels of oil along with huge deposits of natural gas.
In 2000, Suriname sent two gunboats to the region and expelled Toronto-based CGX Energy Inc., halting its oil exploration there under a Guyanese license.
In recent months, Spanish-Argentine company Repsol YPF and CGX Energy have met with Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo to discuss exploring parts of the basin.
Jagdeo has said he is eager to launch surveys after a ruling is issued under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which local officials expect to be announced in August.
Surinamese officials could not immediately be reached for comment.