Palmer Petroleum Announces Major Gas Find Off Papua New Guinea Coast

Researched by Industrial Info Resources Australia (Perth, Australia)--One of the world's largest gas fields has been discovered off the coast of Papua New Guinea, according to Clive Palmer, the chairman of Palmer Petroleum Pty Limited (Brisbane, Australia).

Palmer recently announced that his company has identified a gas region off the coast of Papua New Guinea with a US$35 billion (AUD$39 billion) potential. The discovery is located in the exploration licences PPL379, PPL380, and PPL381, offshore at the northern end of the Gulf of Papua, west of the national capital, Port Moresby. Palmer Petroleum Pty Limited, the oil and gas arm of Mineralogy Group (Brisbane, Australia), owns all of the exploration licenses.

The company has conducted 3D surveys over more than 1,150 square miles (3,000 square kilometres), and has completed a drill hole analysis with the assistance of British geological consultant Robertson Limited (Llandudno, Wales).

According to Robertson's analysis, the gas field contains about 47 trillion cubic feet, with 28 trillion cubic feet being in the recoverable category.

"The results of the studies are extremely favourable, and show this new Papua New Guinea gas region could possibly be as significant a resource area as the North West Shelf in Western Australia," Palmer said.

Studies and analyses are ongoing. If development does commence, the project will join the PNG LNG project that is under development and led by Esso Highlands Limited (Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea).

The PNG LNG project is an integrated development that includes gas production and processing facilities in the Southern Highlands and Western Provinces of Papua New Guinea, including liquefaction and storage facilities located northwest of Port Moresby on the Gulf of Papua. The US$19 billion (AUD$21 billion) project is one of the largest to be undertaken in Papua New Guinea and is expected to produce more than 9 trillion cubic feet of gas over the lifetime of the project, which is ubstantially smaller than the proposed development by Palmer Petroleum.

Mineralogy Group's other projects include the Sino Iron Project, a large-scale magnetite iron ore development in Western Australia, and the proposed Gladstone Nickel Refinery Project in Queensland.

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