Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited (KPHL) has signed an agreement with LNG Japan Limited to go into a joint venture to purchase and sell Liquefied Natural Gas to LNG markets.
The agreement will enable KPHL to enter the active LNG market and trade LNG cargoes in to LNG market spots.
KPHL Managing Director, Wapu Sonk, and LNG Japan Limited President and CEO, Norikazu Onishi, both signed the agreement today in Port Moresby, in a separate ceremony from the Inaugural Petroleum and Energy Summit.
Sonk said the agreement allows both companies to begin work on a joint venture partnership and take advantage of spot markets.
“This signing ceremony is a very important one, it is a very strategic and also very critical in Kumul Petroleum in taking a step forward in taking part in marketing some of the LNG together with our strategic partner LNG Japan,” he said.
“The long term contracts are fixed but there is opportunity to take up some of the spot market cargoes and selling it to Japan and some of the other markets around the world,”
“LNG Japan has experience in doing this business and Kumul Petroleum as a partner in the project and also as the new national oil company of Papua New Guinea, we’d like to work together and build on each other’s experience,’ Sonk added.
Norikazu Onishi expressed thanks and said his company was happy to sign the agreement.
He said the company was eager to cooperate not only in trading but other areas such as education.
“We like to contribute to the PNG oils and gas industry from now on,” said Onishi.
The signing was witnessed by Minister for Petroleum and Energy, Nixon Duban, KPHL Board Chairman, Frank Kramer, as well as Japan Ambassador to PNG, Satosha Nakazima.
Meanwhile, Minister for Petroleum Nixon Duban said the agreement brings a milestone chapter for PNG and brings the country closer into the very exclusive LNG markets.
“We have taken a step to getting closer an integrating into the markets and also opting to bring to the forefront of the marketing businesses and participating in transportation and integrating key customers,” he said.