Western LNG plan progressing

Business

HORIZON Oil has reported that good progress is being made on planning for the proposed Western LNG development project.
Chief executive Brent Emmett said the group’s project team was making “good headway’’ on planning the three main elements of the project: its upstream processing facilities, the gas and condensate export pipelines to Daru Island, and the modular liquefaction facility to be located near Daru.
Emmett said while the main focus of the project was the regional export of LNG, it also contemplated gas and LPG sales into the domestic market at multiple outlets to benefit landowners and communities in Western and elsewhere in PNG.
Emmett was speaking during the release of the Horizon Oil’s profit report for the year to the end of June. Horizon Oil managed to weather the slump in oil prices to post net operating cash flow from oil production at its projects in China and New Zealand of $US51.7 million, in line with $US53 million last year.
Horizon also strengthened its position in the proposed 1.5 million tonnes-a-year Western LNG project in a series of recent transactions which saw it emerge with a 28 per cent interest in the total gas-condensate resource underpinning the project.
Western LNG is a mid-scale LNG project proposal involving 2 to 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 60 to 70 million barrels of revenue boosting condensate (light oil).
The project will be supplied with gas from several fields in Western, with PDL 10 (Stanley) and PRL 21 (Elevala/Ketu) providing the cornerstone gas volumes.
In a company presentation on the 2017 annual financial results lodged with the Australian Securities Exchange, Emmett said preliminary project economics of Western LNG with a projected 20 years-plus life and the revenue-boost from condensate were attractive.
An investment decision on the project could be possible in 2019.