Gas Agreement Discussion Commenced for the Pasca A Development

The State of Papua New Guinea has commenced negotiations with Twinza on the fiscal terms that will apply to the development of the Pasca A gas-condensate field in the Gulf of Papua. The Government is represented in the discussions by the State Negotiating Team, with members from key selected agencies.

PNG Country Manager, Roppe Uyassi, who is leading the engagement for Twinza, stated that, 

“The Company is committed to working collaboratively with the Government to deliver an agreement that allows the Project to move forward toward development, whilst providing a higher State take than previous projects. Once the Pasca A Gas Agreement and the Petroleum Development License are in place, the Project is well positioned to enter the Front End Engineering and Design phase later this year.”

Twinza is also looking forward to addressing with the SNT important non-fiscal opportunities, including domestic market commitment, third-party access to facilities and national content. These matters are differentiated from land-based projects as the Pasca A field is planned to be the first offshore development in PNG.

Pasca A is being promoted as an infrastructure ‘hub’, whereby existing and new discoveries can utilise spare capacity at the installed facilities to lower their costs. Several offshore fields, including Pandora, can be regarded as commercial if they are aggregated through Pasca infrastructure. Such aggregation of fields can provide a steady stream of investment, jobs and liquefied petroleum gas for the domestic market. Erick Kowa, Twinza’s Technical Lead in the discussions with the SNT, commented that,

“There is a real opportunity for the parties to set the Gulf of Papua up for success through creating a framework for the co-operative development of currently stranded fields. Such an arrangement can provide fiscal certainty for industry players to invest in development and exploration with the confidence that resources can be commercialised.”