Canadian company InterOil is poised to sign a partnership agreement with a major company to join the proposed Gulf liquefied natural gas project in Papua New Guinea, with Anglo-Dutch supermajor Shell tipped as the likely party.
It is understood the two sides are finalising the terms and conditions of a partnership agreement and this is expected to be achieved soon, said sources.
Once completed, the agreement will mark the conclusion of a protracted process, and will satisfy the demands of the PNG government which insisted that an LNG major be involved in the project for it to receive the state’s final approval to proceed. The terms of the potential deal are not yet known, but sources in the capital Port Moresby said word had been filtering through for several weeks that InterOil’s advisors had recommended a party, which is Shell.
The Anglo-Dutch supermajor said it had no comment to make on the issue.
The new partner will become the project operator and earn a major equity stake in exchange for undisclosed compensation to InterOil, said sources.
The new entrant would have to be absolutely confident about the gas resource that will underpin the project, namely InterOil’s Elk-Antelope fields, and it is understood that various companies have been studying reservoir data carefully these past months.
Late last year, Shell had sounded lukewarm about the InterOil process.
The company acknowledged at the time it had been in discussions with the Canadian company “intermittently over the last year or two”, but had not made any formal proposal “given that we were unable to access all available technical data”.
At the beginning of last month, InterOil said it had received “several bids” to be a partner in the Gulf LNG project, and its advisors would assess these offers during March 2013.
Sources said the bidders were reputable companies but a common feature of their offers was that they did not completely conform with InterOil’s wishes.
Chevron and Eni may have been among them even though, like Shell, they do not have an existing upstream business in PNG.
A recent new arrival in PNG — Total — may also have shown interest.
InterOil said national oil companies and Asian utilities were also interested.
“The asset sell-down, once completed, will fund the Gulf LNG project and our longer-term exploration programme,” InterOil’s chief financial officer Collin Francis Visaggio said last month.
However, the company did not want to put a deadline on the sale process.
“We have secured new long-term debt financing arrangements, and we are very excited about the opportunities ahead of us and looking forward to maintaining momentum and selecting a strategic partner and completing the requirements with the government and stakeholders to proceed to final investment decision on the Gulf LNG project,” added Visaggio. The project’s current shape — as provisionally approved by the government in November 2012 — involves a single onshore train of 3.8 million tonnes per annum of LNG coming on stream in 2016, followed by a second identical train two years later.
InterOil’s most recent capital cost guidance for two trains was between US$8.3 billion and US$9.3 billion. The Canadian company has battled against market pessimism about the project for years, but Interoil has been drilling wells regularly to beef up its resource.
Chief executive Phil Mulacek said last month that, based on the recent Antelope 3 and Triceratops 2 wells, the Elk-Antelope and Triceratops fields had a best case contingent resource of 9.45 trillion cubic feet of gas and 143.6 million barrels of condensate.
http://www.upstreamonline.com/hardcopy/n...322952.ece
the link was brought to my attention by Stavros..credits to him please..
