Total revives Papua New Guinea LNG plan
French energy company Total and Papua New Guinea (PNG) have remobilised the Papua LNG project following talks in Paris May 3 between CEO Patrick Pouyanne and deputy prime minister Samuel Basil.
"After a year of delay because of Covid-19, the government of PNG and Total as operator are pleased to announce the remobilisation of the project teams and of other required resources," Total said. The objective is to launch the front-end engineering and design early next year and to prepare for final investment decision in 2023.
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The progress follows the Fiscal Stability Agreement and the licence extension in February 2021. Pouyanne said the project is high on Total‘s list of projects "given its proximity to growing Asian LNG markets and we will dedicate all necessary resources.”
Basil said: “It was very important" for his government to meet Pouyanne and French authorities to pledge its full support for the project.
Papua LNG will target the production of the two main discoveries offshore in Block PRL-15, Elk and Antelope, that were fully appraised before 2017. It is expected that the gas produced by these fields will be transported by a 320-km pipeline to Caution Bay for liquefaction in two trains with a total capacity of 5.6mn metric tons/yr which will be integrated into ExxonMobil's operational PNG LNG facilities in Caution Bay.
Total operates the Elk and Antelope onshore fields and is the largest shareholder of the PRL15 permit with a 31.1% interest, alongside partners ExxonMobil (28.7%) and Oil Search (17.7%), post the government's back-in right of 22.5%.