Remember this from Last Feb? It's like a gold rush as things have been proven up.
"Posted at 22:31 on 26 February, 2012 UTC
There’s increased interest in Papua New Guinea by major global energy companies keen to unlock the value of the country’s substantial oil and gas assets.
Last week, Mitsubishi entered into a joint venture to develop leases held by Canada’s Talisman Energy in Western Province for potential gas exports.
Exxon Mobil is already leading the major Liquefied Natural Gas project in PNG while this month, Shell announced it’s setting up an office in Port Moresby to further its alliance with the state energy company, Petromin.
And now PNG’s Oil Search Ltd has announced its drilling activities in the Gulf of Papua are attracting interest from major players.
Johnny Blades reports:
The full extent of PNG’s energy resources is still unknown, but exploration activities underway are throwing open doors of big business opportunity.
Oil Search says recent extra gas discoveries would support a third 3.3 million tonne supply for the PNG LNG project, which it says could double PNG’s gross domestic product.
Development of PNG’s oil fields has been ongoing for almost two decades but according to Gordon Ramsay, an analyst for the global financial services company UBS, the gas sector is beginning to take off in a major way:
“Gas is starting to be commercialised and there’s some world class gas discoveries in Papua New Guinea. The Hides field is quite large and one of the cornerstone fields behind the PNG LNG Project which is slated to come on stream towards the end of 2014. (Canadian company) InterOil’s also looking at moving forward with a project in Papua New Guinea - LNG as well. So there’s activity, certainly, on commercialising the substantial gas resource that PNG has.”