Firm to develop oil field

 THE Pasca field offshore Gulf will now be developed for oil after it was abandoned for nearly 40 years by previous companies, an official says.

Petromin PNG Holdings Ltd managing director Thomas Abe said Petromin had a 10 per cent joint venture partnership equity with Philippine-based company, Twinza Oil Ltd, in the development of the Pasca field. 

During the announcement on Wednesday, Abe said: “The Pasca field development will be the first offshore oil and gas development infrastructure in Papua New Guinea and will be the catalyst of similar offshore resources particularly in Gulf.

“Based on our (Petromin) own technical and commercial work of the resource, it seemed very promising for us to continue working with the operator.

“We are excited about the prospects of the Pasca resources and working to deliver the first offshore petroleum project in PNG.”

Twinza chief executive Huw Evans said the company’s total investment to full production would be US$500 million (K1.38bn).

“The concept is to put a platform offshore and that’s the basis of our PDL (petroleum development licence) application which has been submitted with the department (Petroleum and Energy).

“Bring the gas and liquid to surface and separate the condensate, take out the other gas liquids and store those and re-inject the gas into the reservoir until the gas market is available.

“There’s two storage facilities offshore to go with, one for condensate and one for LPG (liquefied petroleum gas).

“It (project) will have small number of people on, maybe 30/40 people. It’s not going to be a big employer like we’ve seen onshore with the LNG projects.

He added that it took the company four years to discover that the Pasca field had potential to be developed. The Pasca field is 95km offshore with 93m of water depth.

Twinza is a company with oil and gas assets in Asia Pacific.

The company focused on commercialising discovered, but as yet undeveloped, oil and gas field.