First gas export today

 THE first liquefied natural gas cargo will be loaded on the Spirit of Hela today for markets in China, Japan and Taiwan.

Treasurer Patrick Pruaitch said in Parliament yesterday that LNG exports would start this week.

Project operator ExxonMobil PNG Ltd managing director Peter Graham had said the company was ready to load the first vessel after conducting sea trials earlier.

He said a total of six LNG tankers would be involved in this project in the long term.

“We’ll load vessels every 4-6 days. They will keep coming and turning around, it takes about a day and a half to load a tanker,” Graham said.

In a statement, ExxonMobil Development Company president Neil Duffin said the project would supply the increasing LNG demand in the Asian markets.

The PNG LNG project was expected to produce 6.9 million tons of LNG to the three Asian markets per annum.

Meanwhile, Pruaitch did not comment on the UBS loan as it was before the Ombudsman Commission after he received questions from Bulolo MP Sam Basil on the deflating state of the kina.

Pruaitch declined to comment after  Basil expressed concerns that the value of the kina continued to drop as Papua New Guinea started exporting the liquefied natural gas.

“I was at home at the weekend and my people were very concerned about the recent rise in fuel prices,” Basil told Pruaitch.