THE State Negotiating Team (SNT) is now in discussions with ExxonMobil in light of reaching the heads of agreement for the P’ynang gas project.
According to the Prime Minister, James Marape, the team is now in Houston Texas at the ExxonMobil’s headquarters where the negotiations are taking place between the two parties.
Prime Minister Marape who will also be in New York for the next six days to attend the United Nations General Assembly said he might visit the negotiating parties to see if the negotiations are nearing its conclusion.
PM Marape made it known that his inclination still remains and that is to get more benefit from the project agreement.
“At the moment the signals we getting from Exxon and our State Negotiating Team who are in a meeting are in good discussions.
“It might be win-win for us or a win-win for them that embrace also the PNG LNG area foot print and the legacies that we are living with as far as PNG LNG is concern,” PM Marape said.
The Prime Minister said once negotiations are complete, the government should come back to the country as to how P’ynang will feature going forward plus Papua LNG.
The Papua LNG construction comes around 2024 and 2025. The government intends to extend the construction phase in the LNG sector instead of just four or five years with Papua LNG.
“We could extend another two or three years backing on possibility of integrating P’ynang into the picture,” Marape said.
He further added that the government has achieved its commitment of having P’ynang a separate project from Papua.
The government is now going into a separate discussion with P’ynang to ensure the country gets more from the project.
Minister for Petroleum, Kerenga Kua when signing the letter of intent with ExxonMobil PNG’s Managing Director, Peter Larden in August, 2021 has said that if all goes well, we can expect to sign a P’nyang heads of agreement around the end of this month and a gas agreement thereafter.