August 23, 2024 [S&P Global]- TotalEnergies has postponed a final investment decision on the planned Papua LNG project in Papua New Guinea to 2025, from an earlier expected date of this year, according to the joint statement released by the Independent State of Papua New Guinea and TotalEnergies April 8.

“The project will need to keep working with contractors to obtain commercially viable EPC [engineering, procurement and construction] contracts and requires more work to reach FID,” according to Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and CEO of the French energy group, in the joint statement.

“In that view, the project will review the structure of some packages and open the competition to an enlarged panel of Asian contractors. As a consequence, FID of Papua LNG project is now expected in 2025,” Pouyanné said.

The project has an export volume capacity of 5.6 million mt/year.

TotalEnergies, the operator of the project, expressed its full commitment to Papua LNG, along with its international partners ExxonMobil, Santos and JX Nippon, saying there were still several LNG buyers for offtaking LNG from Papua LNG due to its proximity to Asian markets.

The early works planned for the project in 2024 will be carried out as normal despite the delay, and TotalEnergies said it would maintain full support of the local population of Papua New Guinea.

TotalEnergies also announced its intention to drill the first deepwater exploration well on the PPL 576 license in 2025.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed the May JKM at $9.582/MMBtu April 8 and the JKM June derivatives at $9.550/MMBtu.

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