from pngindustrynews Monday 7/26
ROYAL Dutch Shell has reportedly submitted a new offer for InterOil’s Elk-Antelope discoveries in Papua New Guinea since InterOil’s exclusivity arrangements lapsed for its ongoing negotiations with ExxonMobil.
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Upstream reported that Shell submitted a new offer, based on what was raised by “well-placed sources”.
PNGIndustryNews.net first broke the news that InterOil was no longer exclusively talking to Exxon on August 16. One of PNGIndustryNews.net’s sources has since revealed that it was a “fairly open race” at the moment with InterOil prepared to accept other bids. Exxon was seeking to acquire at least 4.6 trillion cubic feet of gas from the Elk-Antelope field to fuel a third train expansion of the PNG LNG joint venture’s plant near Port Moresby. These talks are continuing with first exports from PNG LNG expected next year. However, Petroleum Minister William Duma, along with Gulf Province parliamentarians, have campaigned against piping the Elk-Antelope gas outside of the province, providing an obstacle to Exxon’s plans. The Elk-Antelope field in licence PRL 15 has 9.07Tcf of initial recoverable sales gas according to GLJ Petroleum Consultant’s best-case estimate. Despite previous plans for its own LNG project in PRL15, earlier this month InterOil’s new chief executive officer Michael Hession revealed that the company’s focus would be “non-operated LNG, midstream refining and downstream distribution and upstream exploration.”
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