Oil Search was the largest oil and gas exploration and development company incorporated in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, which operated all of the country's

oilfield A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the prese ...

s. In December 2021, it merged with the Australian company Santos.

History

Oil Search was founded in 1929. It was one of Papua New Guinea's largest companies, and in 2006 was responsible for 13% of Papua New Guinea's gross domestic product.Profile
at official site It was publicly listed on the

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 ...

and

Australian Stock Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX) is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or confused within Australia as, ...

s. It had a market capitalization of around US$12 billion. A 17.6% interest in the company was held by the Government of Papua New Guinea, The company also operates areas in Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and the

Kurdistan region of Iraq Kurdistan Region (KRI) is a semi-autonomous federal region of the Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurdish-majority governorates of Arab-majority Iraq: Erbil Governorate, Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Duhok Governorate, and Halabja Governora ...

. In May 2014,

ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the Successors of Standard Oil, largest direct s ...

shipped the first cargo of

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

(LNG) from the US$19 billion PNG LNG Project, in which Oil Search owns a 29% interest. In 2021, Oil Search agreed terms with Santos to merge, with Oil Search shareholders taking a 38.5% shareholding in Santos. The merger took effect on 14 December 2021.Santos and Oil Search merger becomes effective
Santos 10 December 2021

References

External links

* Archive dated 29 March 2009 at Companies formerly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange Oil and gas companies of Papua New Guinea 1929 establishments in Papua New Guinea Australian companies disestablished in 2021 Energy companies established in 1929 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1929 Energy companies disestablished in 2021 Non-renewable resource companies disestablished in 2021 Mubadala Investment Company 2021 mergers and acquisitions {{petroleum-company-stub