Page 9 - AsianOil Week 06 2021

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hydrogen energy to make this possible. As such, “As for LNG, we still believe demand will rise
Inpex has ditched plans to bolster its oil and gas in the mid and long term, mainly in Asia, and we
production from 580,000 barrels of oil equiva- will keep investing in new projects,” Ueda told
lent per day to 1mn boepd, with Inpex President reporters in late January. “As for oil, we would
Takayuki Ueda describing the target as no longer expand assets only near existing projects …
being valid. instead of starting new projects from scratch.”™

OCEANIA

PNG, Total sign LNG agreement

PROJECTS & THE Papua New Guinea (PNG) government has had aimed to save $2-3bn in construction costs
COMPANIES signed a fiscal stability agreement with French thanks to the sharing of infrastructure.
major Total for the Papua LNG project. This week’s agreement, however, will see the
PNG Prime Minister James Marape said on Total-led consortium proceed with the develop-
February 9 that the agreement adhered to project ment of Papua LNG’s Elk-Antelope gas discov-
terms agreed by Total with the country’s previ- ery alone.
ous administration in April 2019. Marape said: “It [the agreement] demon-
Marape entered office in May 2019, follow- strates Papua New Guinea’s commitment to
ing the resignation of then prime minister Peter the Papua LNG Project and gives comfort and
O’Neill, promising a broad spectrum review of encouragement to the developers to progress the
the country’s oil and gas agreements. project.”
While Total’s agreement was eventually Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne, meanwhile,
approved in September of that year, talks with described the project as a “priority for the group”,
Papua LNG partners ExxonMobil and Oil noting he hoped to reach a final investment deci-
Search over the development of the separate sion (FID) in 2022.
P’nyang project eventually broke down. Credit Suisse analyst Saul Kavonic raised
The three companies had initially intended some concerns about this timeline, however,
to double the country’s LNG exports to 16mn telling Reuters that while the fiscal stability
tonnes per year (tpy) through a two-part initi- agreement would lower the risk of tenure over
ative involving a three-train expansion of the gas field licences that had been due to expire this
ExxonMobil-led PNG LNG terminal at Caution year, there was “still a long way to go”.
Bay near Port Moresby. He pointed out that “tough commercial nego-
P’nyang, located in the Western Highlands, tiations” lay ahead for Total and ExxonMobil as
was supposed to underpin one of the trains, the respective operators of the upstream and
while the other two were to use gas from Papua downstream components.™
LNG. By linking the two projects, the developers

Image: Total

Week 06 11•February•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P9