Papua LNG project not baked into High ArcticVirtually no value is being given for Papua LNG project going ahead.
The current PNG LNG project gets its gas from the Hides gas field.
The Papua LNG project will get its gas from the Elk- Antelope gas fields which aren't yet developed.
Guess who will be drilling the prospects ...hmmm...
Papua LNG - Mr. Market has yet to catch on that High Arctic is aggressively hiring people in Papua New Guinea right at this moment in time. They aren't doing that for no good reason!
Three FEED contracts are being offered — the upstream central processing facility and wellpads; the onshore and offshore pipelines; and the early works.
Central processing and facility wellpads:
Multiple market sources said the frontrunner for the upstream facility FEED is Technip Energies, with competition coming from some or all of McDermott, Fluor/Saipem, Wood and Worley.
Onshore and offshore pipelines:
For the pipeline FEED, Worley is said to be in a good position, according to market sources.
The Papua LNG project is based on the development of the onshore Elk-Antelope gas fields in Block PRL 15 via a large onshore central processing facility, dual 60-kilometre onshore pipelines for gas and condensate, and dual 265-kilometre offshore pipelines to two new liquefied natural gas trains at Caution Bay near Port Moresby.
TotalEnergies is the operator of the upstream and pipeline components while ExxonMobil is running the show with the two new trains, given their location will be ExxonMobil’s existing PNG LNG facility.
The two new trains will have a total capacity of 5.6 million tonnes per annum of LNG, with Japanese engineering house Chiyoda favoured to land the FEED contract given Chiyoda was the main LNG contractor for the two existing trains at PNG LNG.
TotalEnergies has previously indicated to Upstream that its FEED contractors will not be excluded from participating in the highly lucrative engineering, procurement, construction and installation contracts.
Market sources said the upstream construction model will be partially modular — some of the construction of the upstream facility will be offshore, with those modules shipped in to PNG.
Papua LNG stands to add substantially to PNG’s exports of LNG, and the Elk-Antelope area has significant unexplored nearby acreage.
The development of Papua LNG is likely to be followed by the P’nyang gas field development which will set up further LNG expansion through the addition of another new LNG train at ExxonMobil’s site.
There are also other discoveries including Muruk which are standing by to be developed for the LNG market.
The Canadian drilling company High Arctic Energy Services, which is a dominant player in PNG, has indicated recently that PNG is on the verge of a recovery following several years of being in a slump.
Mike Maguire, High Arctic’s chief executive, said “We look forward to increasing activity in PNG, where we anticipate activity levels in the coming years have the potential to exceed our past peaks.
We expect further announcements about the development of P’nyang and other PNG LNG fields, among other projects to increase oil and gas production.”
Papua LNG has moved up the ranks at TotalEnergies after the suspension of the French operator’s Mozambique LNG project.
The Elk-Antelope fields contain about 6.5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 57 million barrels of condensate on a gross best estimate contingent basis, according to Oil Search, which is now part of Santos.