Operator
We'll move now to Jason Gamel with Macquarie.
<Q - Jason Gamel>
: Hi, David.
<A - David Rosenthal – Exxon Mobil Corp.>
: Hey. Hi, Jason. How are you?
<Q - Jason Gamel>
: Good, thank you. I just want to ask a few questions. Thank you for the detail, first of all, on the
project schedule, we always want more than you give us, I guess we have a healthy appetite. I was helping that you
might be able to first of all, discuss any commercial arrangements for the natural gas at Sakhalin , given the expansions
that you're going through there. And also just within the gas business if you could talk about the potential for train three
at PNG and what the process will be leading up to that decision. And then, finally, there has been a little more
discussion on the monetization of Alaskan natural gas. Can you talk about maybe what your intents would be on the
Floyd Thompson lease?
<A - David Rosenthal – Exxon Mobil Corp.>
: Sure, Jason. That's – you've kind of hit all -- a big piece of our
opportunity set out there and it is pretty broad. We have a lot of opportunities in a number of places around the world.
If I take them in order, well, I can't ever discuss commercial arrangements or commercial negotiations that might be
ongoing in the business, I will say, as we look at Sakhalin gas and the gas resources that we have there, we are looking
at a potential LNG facility with Rosneft on Sakhalin island. We're looking at some locations under consideration and
progressing the evaluation of that project, and working on it pretty steadily here. So that's one opportunity that's
certainly out there. We have a very nice gas resource in the area, and finding a way to monetize that would continue to
make what's already a very attractive project even more so, so we're looking forward to working on that.
If we flip over to the Papua New Guinea plant, as I mentioned that project is coming along very well, we're very
pleased with the progress, heading towards a startup next year. We are and continue to look at the potential for adding a
third train. We have space to do that there. A lot of opportunities. One, of course, is the discussions that are ongoing
with inner oil. I know it was in the press recently that our exclusivity period had ended, and that was correct, but we are
still discussing. We still have negotiations ongoing, and we'll just have to see how that bears out. We also, in the area,
have a pretty good opportunity set in terms of exploration, and we have had some success there recently and we
continue to evaluate that opportunity, so that's still a possibility. And, of course, adding a train to an existing site is
usually a pretty robust investment opportunity, so we'll continue to pursue that. When we look at the potential of LNG
exports out of Alaska, we did complete, in the third quarter, our summer field surveys on the northern portion of the
proposed pipeline route, which, of course, is the first field work required for permitting, so we did a lot of work during
the summer to analyze in particularly environmental conditions among other items. So we continue to progress that on
the project side. That is a -- that would be a very, very large project, literally unprecedented scale and complexity. So
it's going to be very important to have a good fiscal, sound fiscal and stable fiscal regime there, and that will be one of
the items necessary, of course, to continue to progress that project. But it does move along, the point Thompson project
is also moving along. So that opportunity is still there. I think what's really interesting, I think if you take a step back
and look at some of the questions we've had today on LNG, you really get a sense for the really rich opportunity set we
have around the world for potential monetization of our gas resources, particularly via LNG, mentioned the Sakhalin
project, we've had great exploration success so far in Tanzania. We have the Gulf Coast project that we're anxious to
progress. We continue to evaluate the potential for LNG exports out of British Columbia. And then we mentioned
Alaska, and we have other opportunities. So it's nice to have a real rich opportunity set that's geographically diverse,
and we're spending, as you would expect a lot of time looking at all of those and looking at which ones are ready in
order bring forward for commercialization, but it's great to have that portfolio and the ability to take a nice long-term
view of monetizing those natural gas resources we have around the world.
<Q - Jason Gamel>
: Thanks for that very thorough answer, David. Maybe just a very quick up. is Yang field still a
possibility [indiscernible] at PNG [52:10]?
<A - David Rosenthal – Exxon Mobil Corp.>
: That's one nice discovery that we've had. I wouldn't want to take it any
further than that, other than it is one of many opportunities that we have in the area and we're still evaluating that to
answer the question that you've asked. While we consider other exploration potential in the area. I think the good news
is the base -- the base project's doing well, opportunities for expansion exist, and we have a couple of different
opportunities we can pursue to affect that expansion in due course. So more to come on Papua New Guinea in the
future.
<Q - Jason Gamel>
: Great. Thanks, David.
