Papua New Guinea’s national oil and gas company Kumul Petroleum said it had sold its first spot liquefied natural gas cargo produced at the PNG LNG project. The buyer is PetroChina International.
The firm announced in a statement on Wednesday that it was for the first time directly marketing LNG on the spot market from its share of the PNG LNG project that was not committed to long-term sales agreements.
Confirmed last month, the deal is to sell 144,000 cbm of LNG on FOB terms to PetroChina International following a tender process held in February.
Kumul said in the statement that the 2022-built 174,000-cbm LNG carrier, Wudang, was being loaded at the PNG LNG jetty at Caution Bay.
Managing director Wapu Sonk said Kumul has a 16.77 percent share in the PNG LNG project and this “entitles us to sell approximately 14 LNG cargoes over the next 4 years.”
Also, once Kumul concludes the acquisition of an additional 2.6 percent stake of the PNG LNG project from Australia’s Santos, this will provide the firm “with more LNG to sell on the spot market,” he said.
“We are currently in talks with other potential buyers who will be purchasing LNG shipments from us in the future,” Sonk said.
The ExxonMobil-operated PNG LNG project shipped 27 cargoes of LNG in the first quarter of 2024, down by one cargo compared to the same quarter last year and three cargoes less compared to the prior quarter, according to Santos.
Santos currently has a 42.5 percent stake in the LNG export plant in Caution Bay following the Oil Search merger, while ExxonMobil holds a 33.2 percent operating interest in PNG LNG which is able to produce more than 8.3 million tonnes of LNG annually.