Firm optimistic about project

 TWINZA Oil Ltd says it is keen to market and distribute gas within PNG and the Pacific region.

The Philippines-based company will be operating Papua New Guinea’s first offshore oil project in Gulf. 

Chief executive officer Huw Evans said: “Hopefully we can make some contribution to some domestic production, and we are certainly looking at getting the energy that we produce back into the PNG domestic economy.”

Eda Oil Ltd, wholly owned subsidiary of Petromin PNG Holdings Ltd, will be the joint venture partner in the project. 

Petromin has a 10 per cent equity in the Pasca gas field project.  

“The Gulf natural gas liquids project will be wholly developed within the Gulf provincial boundaries,” Evans said. “The Pasca A development will produce gas and natural-gas liquids and the joint venture is actively exploring marketing and distribution opportunities within PNG and the Pacific region. 

“We’ll be opening an office here (Port Moresby) shortly. We are in the process of doing recruitment and putting a team together in Papua New.

“PNG has got a challenging environment because the marine services to all the gas services are not readily available here. 

“We started our EIA (environmental impact assessment) in July last year. 

“We will look to submit our EIS (environmental impact statement) towards end of this year and normal process will have us approvals towards the middle of next year, we hope. We look forward to go and do some offshore drilling, which is phase one of drilling campaign, which will really look at not only the resources that we have already established but we see a lot of upside 

in the field as well and we’ll be looking at establishing that through drilling.”

The total project investment would be US$500 million (K1.38bn).