ExxonMobil has restarted talks with the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) on the development of the P’nyang natural gas project.
Talks on the project, which was set to be tied to a $13bn expansion of PNG’s liquefaction capacity, stalled in late 2019 after the government pushed for better terms than it had obtained for ExxonMobil’s original PNG LNG development.
At that time, ExxonMobil and its partners were proposing to develop P’nyang to support a third new train at PNG LNG. However, the companies are now considering bringing the field online at a later date to feed the existing trains as current feedstock gas supplies are depleted, according to previous comments from Oil Search, one of the partners in the project.
“A series of workshops regarding the development of the P’nyang Gas fields will take place over the next couple of weeks and if all goes well, we can expect to sign a P’nyang heads of agreement [HoA] around the end of this next month and a gas agreement thereafter,” PNG Minister for Petroleum Kerenga Kua said last week.
ExxonMobil told Reuters this week that its discussions with the PNG government would be aimed at aligning “on a gas agreement that ensures fair benefits for project stakeholders and the people of PNG”. Further details were not specified.
ExxonMobil and Oil Search also own stakes in the planned Papua LNG project, which is operated by France’s TotalEnergies. Papua LNG and the PNG LNG expansion were initially set to be developed in tandem, but Papua LNG is now further ahead, having already reached an agreement with the government.

 

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