National oil and gas companies from major countries in the Asian region are showing keen interest in the PNG energy sector.
Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited Managing Director, Wapu Sonk, says there is ongoing discussions between these countries on ways to enter the energy market in PNG.
He said PNG is one of the few remaining countries in the world which has an energy resource base that is yet to be fully explored.
Speaking at the Oxford Business Roundtable early last week, Sonk said with the APEC year upon us, significant interest has been shown by these countries.
“All our buyers in the LNG are national oil companies. CTC out of Taiwan, Chinese companies, Japanese, they are all Government driven and they want to make APEC special, they want to make entry into PNG at a different level, and energy is sort of the environment they are looking at,” said Sonk.
He said constant dialogue is taking place on many prospects which these investors are looking to tap into.
“It’s up there when it comes to APEC and the importance that the APEC countries are placing on energy, mainly because we are potential suppliers and a lot of the countries have exhausted their resources.
“PNG and the US are the new suppliers in the market.”
Sonk also highlighted the upcoming trains for ExxonMobil and the Papua LNG projects which are expected to go into Front End Engineering Design (FEED) and the off-shore Pasca Gas Project.
He said PNG’s gas resources remain underexplored, catching the eyes of gas and energy developers.
(Wapu Sonk speaking during the roundtable last week)