Australia’s Woodside Petroleum has launched an A$11.65 billion (K22.83 billion) offer for one of Papua New Guinea’s largest companies, Oil Search Ltd. It’s the latest in series of moves that has seen several PNG gas-related assets change hands in the past year.
Gas projects in Papua New Guinea are extremely viable, despite the downturn in oil and gas prices, the Managing Director of Oil Search, Peter Botten, has told the 2015 PNG Advantage Investment Summit in Brisbane.
A founding shareholder in the PNG LNG project, Santos, says it will carry out a ‘full strategic review’ of its operations, after losing more than A$8 billion in market value in the first half of 2015.
Following the passage of enabling legislation in the last sitting of Papua New Guinea’s National Parliament, the long-awaiting restructure of state assets and enterprises under the Kumul name is set begin, with Prime Minister O’Neill setting a target of 1 January 2016 for the transfer of state assets to their new homes.
The latest closure of the Ok Tedi mine reminds us that disruptions at major mining operations in Papua New Guinea are nothing new. While the closure is undoubtedly a setback, Business Advantage PNG’s survey of PNG’s other major mines suggests prospects for the mining sector are more positive.
The El Nino weather pattern which has seen the temporary closure of the Ok Tedi mine could potentially last for up to a year, according to former senior PNG agriculture business executive, Bob Hansen, adding the loss of mining income could be as much as K2.77 billion a year.
A drilling campaign covering 1.5 km in the Gulf region has revealed there is enough high quality coal to run a 50-megawatt power station for 30 years, according to Paul Mulder, CEO of Brisbane-based unlisted miner, Mayur Resources.
The selection of the two key sites to develop Papua New Guinea’s Elk Antelope LNG fields was a difficult task, requiring a full set of studies to reach a decision, according to Philippe Blanchard, the Managing Director of Total PNG, the lead operator of the project.
The partners in Papua New Guinea’s second LNG plant have chosen Caution Bay as the processing site for the Elk-Antelope project, paving the way for close cooperation with the nearby ExxonMobil PNG LNG venture.
Travel times to medical centres in remote parts of Papua New Guinea have been cut from three weeks to as little as three hours as a result of health initiatives introduced by Digicel’s PNG Foundation. Business Advantage PNG spoke to Foundation CEO Beatrice Mahuru to find out how this has been achieved.