KUMUL PETROLEUM, the government-owned shareholder in the PNG LNG project, has signed a contract for early-stage design work on the planned floating LNG facility to be deployed in the Gulf of Papua.
Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited signed for Pre-Front-End Engineering & Development (FEED) work on the FLNG with Shanghai Wison Offshore & Marine Company Ltd on the sidelines of the 2024 Petroleum & Energy Conference late last week.
The deal was sealed by KPHL MD Wapu Song and chief technical officer Damien Nguyen, with the latter saying Wison was delighted to work closely with Kumul Petroleum in its ambitious plan to commercialise gas fields in PNG.
“This is a critical step and in the right direction, one we are extremely excited about as the National Petroleum Company,” Mr Sonk said. “KPHL has for some time been investigating how to commercialise stranded gas resources, particularly those in our Petroleum Retention Licenses (PRLs 47 &50) over the Pandora and Uramu gas fields, offshore of Gulf Province.
“KPHL has evaluated these gas discoveries and completed reserve certification, which has given us confidence to move to this stage of the commercialisation plan. KPHL is 100% license holder of the two PRL offshore licenses at the moment and intends to farm down post this study to interested partners who see value in the 1.5mtpa FLNG project in PNG.”
Mr Sonk said the pre-FEED study is a necessary step to understanding the full scope, cost, schedule, risk and the full economic value before making a decision on moving to FEED and Final Investment Decision. The pre-FEED study is expected to take 8-12 months, leading to entry of FEED thereafter, and FID sometime in 2026 or 2027.
KPHL has a 16.57% interest in the PNG LNG project, which takes gas from a number of licences and includes a gas conditioning plant at Hides, export of condensates through co-mingling with oil from the Santos-operated Kutubu oil project, 700 kilometres of onshore and offshore pipelines and a two- train LNG plant at Caution Bay outside Port Moresby. The plant has a nameplate capacity of 6.9 mtpa but has consistently exceeded this level in recent years with outputs of more than 8 mtpa.
KPHL partners in the PNG LNG Project are ExxonMobil (33.2%), JX Nippon (4.7%), MRDC (2.8%) and Santos (42.5%).
