Australian energy firm New Guinea Energy has sold half of its Papua New Guinea licence to ExxonMobil for $40million.
The deal, which will help fund exploration of the Kaisy-1 prospect on the southern coast of Papua New Guinea, will see ExxonMobil subsidiary Esso PNG Robin taking a 50% participating interest in the 269 licence.
The licence, which is also farmed in by Talisman and Mitsubishi, is believed to hold up to 12trillion cubic feet of gas, and will go through by October next year if all conditions are met.
NGE will turn their focus to the 50million barrel Kaisy-1 oil prospect, which the company hopes to attract potential investors to.
Grant Worner, chief executive of NGE, said the deal represented an excellent outcome for the firm.
“An additional $40 million puts the company in a terrific position to pursue what we consider to be attractive exploration opportunities,” he said.
“An important component of this strategy is the Kaisy-1 lead near the southern coastline of PNG in PPL 267.
“NGE believes this target has the potential to contain more than 50 million barrels of petroleum initially in place. With the materiality of this lead and its proximity to water borne transport routes, this target offers an exciting opportunity to significantly change the shape of the Company and to generate near-term production and material revenues.”
