Liquid Niugini LNG is a natural gas liquefaction project in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. It is developed by Liquid Niugini Gas Ltd, and owned by PNG LNG Inc., a Bahamas-based parent holding company. It is one of several natural gas projects in Papua New Guinea and is associated with the

Hides gas field The Hides gas field is a natural gas field located in the Hela Province of Papua New Guinea. It was discovered by BP in 1987, and after BP relinquished their interest, was later developed by ExxonMobil. It began production in 1988 and produces na ...

Technical description

The LNG plant will be built adjacent to the

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...

owned by InterOil near

Port Moresby (; Tok Pisin: ''Pot Mosbi''), also referred to as Pom City or simply Moresby, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea. It is one of the largest cities in the southwestern Pacific (along with Jayapura) outside of Australia and New Z ...

. The LNG plant will consist of one processing train with nominal capacity of 5 million tonnes with option to add a second train to increase total capacity up to 9 million tonnes of LNG and 1 million tonnes of

natural gas liquids Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natur ...

per year. It will be supplied with natural gas from Elk and Antelope gas and condensate fields by natural gas pipeline. The preliminary engineering and evaluation design work were done in spring 2007. The plant will use

ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational corporation engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production. It is based in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas. The company has operations in 15 countries and has production in ...

' proprietary natural gas liquefaction technology (Optimized CascadeSM Process) and it is to be constructed by

Bechtel Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. , the ''Engineering News-Record'' ranked Bechtel as the sec ...

. The project is expected to cost US$5 billion to US$7 billion. The first cargo of LNG is planned to be delivered in 2012. In December, 2009, Ex-Im Bank Directors approved US$3 billion in financing for the

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

-led project in December, 2009.

Project company

PNG LNG Inc is owned equally by InterOil Corp., Merrill Lynch Commodities, Inc., and Pacific LNG Operations Ltd. There are provisions for the entry of strategic partners, and for inclusion of the Government of Papua New Guinea.

Criticism

The project has reportedly sparked violence and in April, 2012, the

government called in troops to quell opposition from villagers after a landslide linked to a quarry that had been used by the project killed an estimated 25 people.Further Updates on Tumbi Landslide from RNZI, LNG Watch, Papua New Guinea, available at http://lngwatchpng.blogspot.com/2012/03/further-updates-on-tumbi-landslide-from.html

References

{{Reflist Oil and gas companies of Papua New Guinea Proposed liquefied natural gas plants