The Papua New Guinea Government will be marketing its own gas apart from the developer when the Papua LNG project production starts.
PNG’s oil and gas company, Kumul Petroleum Holdings Ltd, as a partner with the project developer TOTAL SA, has come up with an agreement to have KPHL staff undergo training with TOTAL SA in Paris on marketing our gas to buyers.
Announcing two senior employees on secondment with Total SA for 2 years, Kumul Petroleum Managing Director Wapu Sonk said the secondment is part of staff development and also signifies a milestone in assigning KPHL staff to the Total and Kumul Marketing Joint Venture.
The two staff are Ms Mathilda Namorong (senior legal officer) and Mr Ephraim Tammy (snr petroleum engineer) who will be initially based in Paris for three months on the job training and then move to Singapore.
The training is part of the Heads of Agreement (HOA) signed with Total for joint marketing of Papua LNG.
Sonk added that this is a great initiative that the company had undertaken as the Government will be marketing its own gas compared to the PNG LNG Project where the developer does all the marketing.
“This is a great initiative for professional development of Kumul Petroleum staff in terms of giving them exposure to how other industry players operate globally.
“Being an NOC, these kind of assignments for staff are a great avenue for them to participate in active learning, and use these learnings to make further improvements within the Company,” Sonk stated.
The managing director said the two employees will join the Marketing Joint Venture entity and possibly extend the two years further as Kumul and Total finally sign the shareholders agreement to formally establish the marketing company.
He said PNG did not market its LNG in PNGLNG Project, it was jointly marketed by ExxonMobil.
Papua LNG and PNG LNG Project expansion LNG volumes will be equity marketed and Kumul is now partnering with Total to market our share of LNG together.
Meantime, TOTAL SA managing director Philip Blanchard welcomed the announcement of the two senior staff and urged them to learn as much as they can as they will also start marketing the gas to suitable buyers whilst on training.