Page 11 - AsianOil Week 41 2021

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lifespan by around 10 years, increase recovery was a low-relief, simple anticline structure with
from the Yolla field itself and defer abandonment 23.6mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of net 2P
of both the platform and Lang Lang Gas Plant. undeveloped reserves.
Wood’s vice-president of consulting, Enda Beach operates Trefoil with a 90.25% stake,
O’Sullivan, said: “We are proud to support having acquired Japanese developer Mitsui
Beach Energy with a robust technical solution & Co.’s stake in both the field and the BassGas
that could extend the life of their assets and help project – which contains Yolla – earlier this year.
meet the needs of the local gas market.” Beach also operates BassGas with an 88.75%
Beach said in February that it was targeting interest.
a final investment decision (FID) for Trefoil in Prize Petroleum, a unit of India’s state-run
the second half of 2023. It noted that the two Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL), paid
wells that were drilled during the 2000s had AUD85mn ($63mn) in 2014 for a 9.75% interest
intersected the structure and showed that it in Trefoil and an 11.25% stake in BassGas.™

PNG government wants

bigger stake in PNG LNG

POLICY THE government of Papua New Guinea (PNG)
has said that it would want to up its stake in the
PNG LNG project if the proposed takeover of
Oil Search by Santos goes ahead.
Under the proposed deal, Santos will acquire
Oil Search’s interest in PNG LNG, making it the
biggest single shareholder in the project, which
is operated by ExxonMobil, with a 42.5% stake.
Santos had said it would seek to sell down part
of the stake in an effort to help align partner
holdings in the project. However, the PNG gov-
ernment, which needs to give its approval for
the merger to proceed, has said it must meet the
country’s national interest.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape met San-
tos’ CEO, Kevin Gallagher, and Oil Search’s CEO,
Peter Fredericson, in Port Moresby last week to Australian as saying. “The Prime Minister is ask-
discuss the deal. The Australian newspaper cited ing that the joint venture project partners should
unnamed sources as saying the PNG govern- all agree for the state to be given the first right of
ment would expect to acquire a stake for a low refusal to acquire some portion of that equity,”
price, or potentially via a loan. he told the newspaper. A Credit Suisse analyst,
“All things considered, the state would like Saul Kavonic, was quoted by Reuters as saying
to pick a portion of whatever Santos will make negotiations were likely just beginning.
available in their rebalancing,” PNG Petro- “Our view is the government will extract
leum Minister Kerenga Kua was quoted by the something here, but ultimately it will be modest
and shouldn’t prevent the deal from proceeding,”
Kavonic said. He added, though, that if negoti-
ations with the government are prolonged, this
could delay preliminary design work on the
Papua LNG project, which will have its facili-
ties integrated with PNG LNG. The TotalEner-
gies-led project is targeting a final investment
decision (FID) in 2023.
Oil Search shareholders are due to vote on
the merger on November 29, with 75% of the
votes needing to be cast in favour if the deal is
to go through.™

Week 41 14•October•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P11