Here's the latest from PNG National. My take is that a number of possible gas projects "are still alive" but that the chances of a last minute customer or customers in Queensland saving the pipeline are probably slim.
OSH is performing well currently but needs something extra to get investors/instos excited - like the pipeline, other gas developments, Moran success or a major joint venture or takeover. I wonder which we will get??
H
Gas project very much alive: Moi
By BRIAN GOMEZ
THE PNG gas pipeline projects remains very much alive, Petroleum and Energy Minister Sir Moi Avei has assured The National. A high-ranking ExxonMobil delegation headed by a vice president from Houston, Bob Franklin, who is in charge of development for the multinational, yesterday briefed Sir Moi on the status of the gas project following the withdrawal of Alcan Ltd. Two other senior ExxonMobil executives, Doug Schwebel and Bob Reed, accompanied Mr Franklin. The project owners of the gas consortium are scheduled to meet in Brisbane today to discuss progress in marketing the gas project, which Oil Search managing director Peter Botten has said would face a "go, no go" decision in a matter of weeks. Among the contenders that could provide PNG with adequate gas purchase agreements to enable front end engineering and design work to proceed are the Comalco alumina refinery in Gladstone, Queensland, the Queensland government utility Energex and Queensland Alumina Ltd, also in Gladstone. Uncertainty has surrounded the PNG Gas Project for the past year and Oil Search Ltd, the biggest single equity owner in the nation's overall oil and gas reserves, is studying a range of options that could become reality whether or not the gas pipeline to Australia gets built. Some of Japan's biggest corporations, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical and Itochu, are actively considering the construction of a large export-based methanol plant that could require the construction of a gas pipeline to Port Moresby. Their feasibility study will be completed by the end of this year. Oil Search is also studying a gas cycling project that could produce significant quantities of condensate over a 15-year period with the liquids piped to the current Kumul oil export terminal. The Japanese groups, in conjunction with Oil Search, InterOil and the PNG Government, are also looking at the possibility of building a gas-fired power plant in Port Moresby.
OSH Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held