Pacific Rubiales in talks on sale of PNG interests
Canadian player negotiating with potential buyers for 12.9% interest in blocks PPL 475 and PRL 39
By Russell Searancke Wellington
10 April 2015 00:00 GMT
Canadian independent Pacific Rubiales is negotiating with interested buyers on the sale of its assets in Papua New Guinea that include at least two gas and condensate discoveries.
French energy giant Total and PNG’s leading operator Oil Search are among the parties most interested, and both are still in discussions with Pacific Rubiales, said sources.
The seller has previously indicated it expects to sign a sales and purchase agreement in the next month or two.
Another big upstream player in PNG, InterOil, is understood to have pre-emptive rights on any sale agreement.
Pacific Rubiales owns 12.9% of blocks PPL 475 and PRL 39, both of which are onshore in the south of PNG and adjacent to the large Elk-Antelope gas and condensate field which is owned by Total, Oil Search and InterOil.
PPL 475 contains the recent Raptor wet gas discovery, while PRL 39 is host to the Triceratops find.
InterOil, which is the operator of Blocks PPL 475 and PRL 39, said recently that over the next 12 months it will be pursuing a gross resource of 8 trillion cubic feet of gas equivalent through appraisal drilling at the Raptor, Triceratops and Bobcat discoveries.
Bobcat is located in Block PPL 476, which is owned by InterOil and minority partners.
The Triceratops 3 appraisal well is planned to spud in the second quarter this year.
InterOil chief executive Michael Hession said recently the appraisal has upside potential of 2 Tcf, “but we’re looking at 1 Tcf at the moment. That’s a very commercial tie back... into Elk-Antelope”.
As for Raptor, “we expect to return to Raptor towards the end of this year. Raptor is a liquids-rich discovery that has the potential to really move the dial”, added Hession.
Pacific Rubiales signalled last year that it would sell its PNG position, despite the discovery of the Raptor resource.
The company’s chief executive Ronald Pantin said previously that its “two important discoveries” in PNG would generate value. “There are very important liquefied natural gas plants there, so we now have to sell those assets for a good price,” said Pantin.
Pacific Rubiales made its entry into PNG three years ago via a farm-in agreement with InterOil.
At the time, Pantin said his company believed the Triceratops structure to be “a world-class gas and condensate trend and which provides us with the strategic opportunity for early stage large resource capture on the doorstep of the world’s fastest growing primary energy markets”.