Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited will be pushing for the creation of the Western Pipeline, which will connect large gas reserve area scattered around the Western province through a common carrier pipeline.
The Western Pipeline aims to aggregate all the gas fields in the province into a single pipeline that will run all the way to Port Moresby.
The gas fields include P’yang, Stanley, Ketu, Elevala, Ubuntu, Puk Puk, Douglas and Kemu.
The preposition is expected to have the potential to underpin all manner of gas commercialisation.
This was revealed by KPHL Managing Director, Wapu Sonk, during the PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum Conference in Sydney, Australia, early this month.
Sonk said the scattered gas fields have been considered as ‘stranded gas’ for decades, because they were either too small or too far out of the way to justify the investment. But collectively could be a major supply of gas and condensate.
He highlighted ExxonMobil’s PNG LNG Project and Total’s effort to commercialise the Elk/Antelope fields, but said the Western Pipeline could be a major investment as well.
“There is another great gas reserve in PNG, a collection of mainly small fields, mostly scattered across the vast Western Province, which when you add them up, could have reserves of around 8 tcf of gas, a very viable commercial volume of gas.
“While some have been discovered decades ago, they’ve never been commercialised because they are too remote, too small, too many different owners, too far away from markets, and all together just too hard.”
He added: “KPHL is driving this agenda by promoting the Western Pipeline that will run from the stranded fields in the Western Province, down to the coast and then onto Caution Bay, near Port Moresby.
“Not only will this provide a commercial outlet for fields like Stanley, Ketu/Elevava, Pukpuk, Douglas, Kimu, Barikewa, and all the other small fields and prospects I have missed, it will also be an incentive for companies to renew their exploration efforts in this vastly underexplored basins.”
KPHL has just completed a multifaceted concept study which established
- The stranded reserves in place
- The ability to be able to aggregate them by pipeline
- The possibility for off-takers to use the gas either domestically or by export
- 7 different configurations of pipelines and one initial preferred option selected.