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In January this year, TotalEnergies and its partners restarted work on the 12.8 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) project after five years of suspension due to attacks.
Besides TotalEnergies, other partners in the project worth approximately $20.5 billion include Japan’s Mitsui, Mozambique’s ENH, Thailand’s PTT, and Indian firms ONGC, Bharat Petroleum, and Oil India.
Pouyanne told analysts during TotalEnergies’ second-quarter earnings call on Thursday that “we are increasing the mobilization of people on the ground. I think we are at 7,000 or 8,000 people. Project is progressing.”
He said earlier this year that more than 6,000 people were working on the project.
“We are facing a few difficulties because some of the equipment was, in fact, being built in Dubai and the different yards in the Middle East. We had to face some tough times to exit all this equipment. I think it’s done now,” he said.
“Today, when we compare to the progress here, we are almost at 45 percent of completion. We have still a lot of things to build on the, I would say, there in Afungi and offshore,” Pouyanne said.
“That’s on its way, with the target being 2029 for the first train,” Pouyanne added.
Papua LNG
Pouyanne also confirmed that TotalEnergies and its partners in the Papua LNG project are targeting a final investment decision on the project in Papua New Guinea by the end of this year.
TotalEnergies has a 37.55 percent operating stake in the Papua LNG project, ExxonMobil has 37.04 percent, Santos owns a 22.83 percent interest, and JX Nippon holds 2.58 percent.
In April 2024, the partners delayed the project’s FID to 2025, saying that they needed to keep working with contractors to obtain “commercially viable” EPC contracts.
Pouyanne revealed in April this year that the partners are making progress towards FID, which is expected in the second half of this year.
“On Papua LNG, we are working all together very closely with ExxonMobil, with Santos, with the government, of course. The government has just launched the last part of the procedures, the local hearings. The objective is to clearly to sanction all that before year-end,” Pouyanne said during the second-quarter call.
“November, I think, is the target,” he said.
“We are aligning the interests of all the partners in the interest of the projects; we are studying how we can maximize synergies today between Papua and PNG LNG in order to deliver the most efficient project to the government,” Pouyanne said.
“I’m happy to see that the different stakeholders have all the same objectives today.. It’s not an easy one, but I’m optimistic we could reach this sanction,” Pouyanne said.
