InterOil Corp.'s top man revealed the company's plans to spend up to 18 billion kina [approximately US$6 billion] on the Napa Napa liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Papua New Guinea. Chief executive Phil Mulacek also said his company was ready to export PNG gas to Asia and the US by 2012.

Mulacek made the disclosures yesterday to clarify reports about the company's petition to the government for exclusive rights to locally produce LNG.

"Nobody needs exclusive deals... what matters is the national interest and the economic benefits to all stakeholders from this new industry. Despite the huge investment, bigger by far than any previous PNG resource development, InterOil is seeking no exclusivity or economic benefit from the national government," Mulacek said.

He said PNG's reserves of gas are large enough to support several LNG projects to earn for the country billions of kina in annual revenues.

"There should never be a question about PNG choosing between [one] LNG project and another, given the quantity and quality of gas available, and the example of neighboring gas provinces including Indonesia, where there are multiple LNG projects."

"Clean PNG gas such as we have discovered at Elk is in sufficient quantity to ensure the economic success of the LNG project we have proposed to the government, without any negative impact on the prospects of other gas fields in the country," Mulacek stressed.

ExxonMobil, Oil Search and Santos, owners of the Hides and Kutubu gas resources, have recently put a plan to the government for a large LNG project based at Hall Sound near Yule Island in Central Province, while InterOil plans to process gas from the Elk field at the site of its existing oil refinery at Napa Napa.

"The government doesn't have to make choices or take sides. Our resources and our potential markets can support multiple LNG projects. If there are genuine gas owners with development funds available and a PNG-only interest, then the Government would be congratulated for encouraging such projects to take off. Others might then be spurred to follow," Mulacek said.

He also made note of the gloomy coincidences that included the disbanding of the PNG Gas Project coordination office, former Petroleum and Energy Minister Sir Moi Avei being sidelined following tribunal inquiry into his electoral affairs and the government's new entity Petromin being questioned by the Ombudsman Commission as being non-transparent.

Mulacek said all these factors were at best an unhappy coincidence, but to suggest that they masked some private deal- making was untrue and damaging to PNG's prospects as a reliable supplier.

(C) 2007 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved

Related Project
PNG LNG Project
Facility Type: LNG Owner: ExxonMobil; Oil Search Limited; Santos; Nippon Oil Exploration; AGL; MRDC); Eda Oil
Scope: New Construction Location: Port Moresby Papua New Guinea