Ministerial Determination Signals Green Light for Pasca A Project

The Minister for Petroleum, Mr Kerenga Kua, signed a Ministerial Determination on Friday, 30 August 2019, that allows the Pasca A project to proceed towards development.

The Ministerial Determination is the first milestone in a series of regulatory steps that are now expected to take place in the months ahead and should culminate in the grant to Twinza Oil of a Petroleum Development Licence (PDL) for the Pasca A field. Twinza has been working diligently with the Department of Petroleum over the past several years to reach this point and looks forward to establishing the first offshore production in Papua New Guinea's history in the not too distant future. The commitment and positive progress achieved by Twinza Oil and the department in ensuring that the appropriate precedent is responsibly set for future oil and gas developments that may follow in Pasca A's footsteps was recognised by the Minister who stated,

“I commend the developer Twinza Oil (PNG) Ltd for their confidence in investing over the years since 2011 and meeting all the requirements of the Oil and Gas Act of PNG.”

The Minister's decision to allow the Pasca A project to move forward was reported in the national papers including the National article "First Off-shore Project Allowed to Proceed" and the Post-Courier article "Twinza Gets Nod for Pasca LNG".

The Minister noted that there are no landowners as the location lies beyond the traditional fishing grounds of the Gulf people and has identified the Gulf Provincial Government as the beneficiary with whom State benefits from the project will be shared. The Ministerial Determination sets the stage for the holding of a development forum at which the benefits sharing process between the Gulf Provincial Government and the National Government can be established.

Twinza's Pasca A project will develop the gas field in two phases via initial production of condensate and liquefied petroleum gas products followed by commercialisation of the gas through floating LNG. Responding to the proposals submitted by Twinza, the Minister commented, 

“My approach as the Minister is to have condensate and gas produced at the same time or within a close time interval (within three years) so that we as a State do not lose value in the residual gas after extraction of the condensate.”

Twinza is preparing to commence front-end engineering and design activities soon after these final regulatory steps are concluded and the PDL has been granted. In anticipation Twinza has begun seeking expressions of interest from PNG vendors seeking to participate in the project.