Oil Search Develops Liquefied Natural Gas Project

Gaining $US200 million from selling a package of its Middle Eastern assets allowed Oil Search Ltd to focus on the development of a Papua New Guinea liquefied natural gas project.
A managing director Peter Botten stated that the sale of these assets would provide cash and reduce near term capital requirements, freeing up funds to facilitate the delivery of Oil Search's share of the PNG LNG project.

The company has retained a number of assets in Yemen, Libya, Tunisia and Kurdistan, Iraq.

"We believe that each of these licenses has the potential to have substantial upside, the value of which can be better captured following further evaluation and de-risking," Mr Botten said.

Oil search's primary focus is the development of an LNG project with partners ExxonMobil, Santos Ltd, Energy Ltd and Nippon Oil.

The project aims to commercialise a number of fields in the Southern Highlands and Western Provinces of PNG, which will be treated and then piped to a storage facility 20 kilometres north-west of Port Moresby.

LNG will then be exported to Asian markets and Oil Search said initial discussions had taken place with potential customers in Thailand.

The initial development is expected to cost up to $US11 billion with first LNG exports expected by 2013.