Back in March when pressed on how the selldown process was proceeding Collin stated that the government would be making the final decision on the commercialization of the project based on the proposals by bidders. Then the issue of Mitsui's involvement and continuing interest was brought up. The last sentence here is a "tell" IMHO that the government has at least decided that what JKM is proposing is not a fit, and at most means that they have made their decision on whose commercialization plan they want to go with:
“The development decision will be recommended by the strategic partner and the PNG government will decide and approve the best commercialisation approach.”
The new partner’s recommendation will relate to developing an initial 3.8 million tonnes per annum LNG plant for the project.
This change from the original plans for 7.6-10.6Mtpa capacity was flagged months ago and Visaggio said InterOil was holding discussions with the government over amendments to the 2009 project agreement.
There are other loose ends as Mitsui Group has lent almost $US12 million to InterOil for their long-running condensate stripping project based on Elk-Antelope.
“Mitsui are currently working with us on the condensate stripping facilities required for the Gulf LNG Project and awaiting the partner outcome,” Visaggio said.
So it seems we at some sort of decision point in this "saga".