Papua New Guinea’s national petroleum entity Kumul Petroleum Holdings is reportedly in early planning to develop its 100%-owned gas fields – two onshore and two offshore.
Kumul managing director Wapu Sonk said in business meetings this month that the company is looking at commercializing gas from Kimu and Barikewa onshore fields as well as from Uramu and Pandora Gulf of Papua offshore fields.
Doing so could involve utilization of existing infrastructure, including establishment of a seventh LNG train at the Caution Bay plant about 25 km northwest of Port Moresby.
The Australian Financial Review quotes Sonk as saying the two existing LNG ventures, ExxonMobil-operated PNG-LNG and TotalEnergies-led Papua LNG, have been approached and agree in principle to the idea.
Sonk said Kumul’s proposals, including construction of a 1 million tonne/year (tpy) capacity LNG train and the work necessary to develop and connect gas from the four fields, could cost about $3 billion.
In total, the fields are estimated to contain about 2.5 tcf of gas, but because of their relatively isolated locations, they have not been considered commercial as single or combined entities, despite proposals mooted by previous operators over the last two decades.
Kumul was awarded the licenses covering all four fields in 2021.
The company is talking to potential development partners, but there is no timetable.
Kumul’s more immediate task is to finalize its $1.4-billion deal with Santos to acquire an additional 5% interest in the PNG-LNG project where the completion date has been extended to April 2023 from end-December 2022 (OGJ Online, Sept. 27, 2022).
The company is also working to raise up to $500 million to cover costs of the Papua New Guinea government’s 22.5% back-in entry to TotalEnergies’ Papua LNG project, which earlier this month received approval to begin engineering design work (OGJ Online, Mar. 7, 2023).
Sonk said that 60-70% of the $10 billion in total project cost for Papua LNG will be project financed and, under terms of the joint venture’s agreement with the PNG government, Papua LNG partners (Total, ExxonMobil, and Santos) will pay half of Kumul’s equity share.
