Hides set for export

 By MALUM NALU in Komo

THE PNG LNG Project’s Hides gas conditioning plant is on target for completion next year in time for first liquefied natural gas exports, according to a senior manager.

Esso Highlands Ltd (EHL) safety and health manager Gerald Wilkinson said during a site visit on Saturday that Hides should be ready in early 2014, to prepare gas for export through the pipeline to Port Moresby.

“We hope to be pushing gas through the pipeline by early next year,” he said.

EHL is the Papua New Guinea subsidiary of global energy giant ExxonMobil, the developer of the K41 billion project.

Gas will flow into Hides from the surrounding well pads, at a rate of 960 million cubic feet a day, which works out to 6.9 million tonnes per annum, to go through various processes to prepare it for export.

Hides is a hive of activity as employees work around the clock to have it shipshape for 2014.

“Our total workforce (at Hides alone) is in excess of 2,600 employees. They come from all over the world,” Wilkinson said.

“We’ve got people from South America, United States, Middle East, a lot of people from Papua New Guinea, and a bunch of people from the Philippines.

“So, really, we’ve got an international workforce.”

Wilkinson said gas would flow into Hides from the well pads, go into the slug catcher where gas, oil, and water would be separated, and then go into stages of compression before entering the pipeline for the long journey to Port Moresby for export.