Page 13 - AsianOil Week 33

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supplies. JXTG Holdings senior vice-presi- dent Yoshiaki Ouchi said: “ ere’s no particu- lar impact on our energy business for the time being, but we need to pay close attention to developments.”
Idemitsu Kosan executive officer Noriaki Sakai was more cautious, however, saying the company would have to think about how to deal with an escalation in trade tensions.
Relations between Seoul and Tokyo have deteriorated since the South Korean Supreme Court ruled in October 2018 that Japanese companies should pay reparations for South Korean slave labour used the during Japanese
occupation of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945.
at ruling is widely believed to have been behind Japan’s decision in July to introduce new rules requiring domestic companies to obtain government approval to export mate- rials used to make smartphone chips to South Korean companies.
Japan’s Cabinet then approved a plan on August 2 to remove South Korea from a “white list” of countries that have enjoyed relaxed trade restrictions. Seoul announced on August 11 that it would respond in kind and would drop Japan from its trade “white list” from September.™
OCEANIA
Papua LNG agreement in doubt once more
FINANCE & INVESTMENT
AFTER several months of mixed messaging from the Papua New Guinea (PNG) govern- ment, the future of the Papua LNG project is once more unclear.
e Papua New Guinea (PNG) government revealed on August 15 that it had sent a team to Singapore to renegotiate the terms of a natural gas agreement it signed in April with the consor- tium developing the project. e government’s negotiating team intended to return early the fol- lowing week, PNG Petroleum Minister Kerenga Kua said at the time. e minister was part of the team.
“The negotiations could work out well or even disastrously,” he warned. “Success in the discussions could lead to early progress of the project. By the same token failure could have very serious rami cations. is is a risk we take as we try to move in the direction of taking PNG back and making it wealthy.”
e tough talk and news of a renegotiation comes as a surprise, given that Kua had said on August 2 that the Cabinet had “agreed in prin- ciple” on July 2 to honour the agreement signed with Total, Oil Search and ExxonMobil setting out the project’s scal framework.
ose comments were also a departure from the frequent calls for contract renegotiations he has made since entering o ce in June.
While neither side has commented on the meetings held in Singapore, Oil Search man- aging director Peter Botten told Reuters on August 20 that further talks were planned with the aim of reaching an agreement by the end of the month.
Botten would not be drawn on whether such a timeline could be met, simply saying: “I’m not going to put odds on it.”
He added: “We’re doing whatever we can to work with whoever we can to try and get this resolved as quickly as possible. Time is running out, though. It’s unusual that this is happening at such a critical time in the project.”
Total has a 31.1% operated interesting in the Petroleum Retention Licence 15 (PRL 15) joint venture, which is developing the Elk-Antelope gas discovery, post the state’s back-in right of 22.5%. ExxonMobil owns 28.3% and Oil Search has the remaining 17.7%. e partners have pre- viously said they are working towards making a nal investment decision (FID) on Papua LNG in 2020.™
Week 33 21•August•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P13