ExxonMobil Corp. has awarded JGC Holdings Corp. and Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd. the front-end engineering design (FEED) and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) estimation contracts for the 4-million tonne/year (tpy) Papua LNG plant in Papua New Guinea. Papua LNG will be built within the boundaries of ExxonMobil’s existing 8.3-million tpy PNG LNG plant, 20 km northwest of Port Moresby, and use 2 million tpy of PNG LNG’s capacity.
A final investment decision (FID) for Papua LNG is expected at end-2023 or early 2024 with construction to begin in 2024. The new plant will use four electrical LNG trains instead of trains powered by gas turbines for compression.
Natural gas will come from the onshore Elk-Antelope field, which holds roughly 6.5 tcf of natural gas and 57 million bbl of condensate. The fields could be brought on stream by late 2027 or early 2028.
ExxonMobil holds 37.1% of Papua LNG. Its partners are TotalEnergies SE (40.1%) and Santos Ltd. (22.8%). The Papua New Guinea government can exercise a back-in right of up to 22.5% at FID.
