Joint venture partners set to negotiate cost sharing

JOINT venture partners of Oil Search are set to negotiate cost-sharing arrangements for the construction of three LNG trains, says Oil Search managing director Peter Botten.
He said this while explaining plans for LNG expansion and how the three LNG trains would have a total capacity of eight million metric tonnes per annum (MTPA).
“Productive, high-level meetings were recently held between Oil Search, ExxonMobil and Total to discuss the results of the downstream development options that were received by the PRL 15 joint venture partners last December,” Botten said.
“The partners have reached a broad agreement on the preferred development concept, which will be presented to the PNG Government and other PNG LNG and PRL 3 joint venture partners for endorsement.”
The development concept that will be proposed is likely to comprise the construction of three LNG trains.
Two of these trains are likely to be dedicated to Papua LNG, supplied with gas from the Elk-Antelope fields, with an additional expansion train underpinned by gas from the existing PNG LNG fields and the P’nyang field.
“We expect negotiations on cost-sharing arrangements and the principles governing integration to commence shortly, which will enable the completion of downstream and upstream technical studies,” Botten said.
He said discussions with the Government on project gas agreements would start late in the first quarter to early second quarter of this year.
Botten said decisions on the front-end engineering and design phase were expected mid this year subject to partner approvals and progress on Government negotiations.