TotalEnergies provides update on offshore Papua New Guinea project
James Marape, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea and Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies, met together to discuss the status of the Papua LNG project. Mr Pouyanné reaffirmed to the Prime Minister that TotalEnergies, the operator of this project, and its international partners ExxonMobil, Santos and JX Nippon are fully committed to Papua LNG.
He also informed the Prime Minister that, after receiving initial EPC offers, it appears the project will need to keep working with contractors to obtain commercially viable EPC contracts and requires more work to reach FID. The project will review the structure of some packages and open the competition to an enlarged panel of Asian contractors. As such, FID of the Papua LNG project is now expected in 2025.
The parties agreed that this slight delay will not affect the early works planned in Papua New Guinea in 2024 and that the project will maintain its full support to the local population of Gulf Province. Moreover, Mr Pouyanné announced that TotalEnergies intends to drill the first deepwater exploration well on the PPL 576 license in 2025.
