Early Trading, page-6

This is the only article I can find in AUST today rolla (extract.)

PNG open to energy majors’ LNG expansion
EXCLUSIVE PERRY WILLIAMS AUST 15Nov

A long-awaited plan by energy majors, including Australia’s Oil Search, to boost LNG production in Papua New Guinea will take shape this week with its government signalling initial support for a gas expansion deal ahead of the APEC summit. The Papua LNG project — controlled by France’s Total in partnership with Oil Search and ExxonMobil — will sign a memorandum of understanding with the government tomorrow, according to PNG Petroleum Minister Fabian Pok.


“We are happy to sign the MOU on Friday and then we will go forward and negotiate the gas agreement,” Mr Pok told The Australian yesterday. “We will enter into that MOU with Total and the Papua LNG partners.”


The draft scheme will set in motion an ambitious plan to double LNG production from the South Pacific country via three new export trains to be added to the existing Exxon, Oil Search and Santos-owned PNG LNG plant near Port Moresby.


Oil Search, owner of a 29 per cent stake in PNG LNG and a 22 per cent share of the Papua LNG venture, has been driving its much larger project partners to pursue the cost-effective , cooperative and rapid development of fields.


The PNG development concept sees three new equal-sized LNG trains being built at the existing PNG LNG plant, to produce an extra eight million tonnes of LNG a year.


This is the same capacity as a previous two-train concept but lines up better with the individual project developments.