Landholder representative group Minerals Resource Development, which is representing Petroleum Resource Kutubu, claims the sizeable and prospective landholding became available in February after Oil Search failed to renew the licence.
“We have been searching for investments to improve the interests of our landholders in the natural resources of our country. This area became available when Oil Search failed to renew the licence after having held it for many years and not developing it,” MRDC managing director Francis Kaupa said.
But an Oil Search spokeswoman told PNGIndustryNews.net this morning the company had submitted an application for the ground.
“We have applied for an extension of the licence term and that is being considered along with the application by PRK and New Guinea Energy,” an Oil Search spokeswoman said.
“The government may decide to split the licence, we are not yet sure, but certainly it hasn’t yet expired.”
Petroleum Prospecting Licence 219 is the ground in question and is known to be a highly prized asset for Oil Search, which named the prospect in a presentation last Friday as one of its top five exploration wells yet to be drilled in 2006.
PPL-219 hosts the prospect Mananda Attic, close to the recently spudded SE Mananda, with Oil Search claiming the prospect has the potential to host between 50 and 100 million barrels of oil.
In the company’s annual report released last month, Oil Search said it had deferred 2005 exploration drilling at Mananda Attic “due to a continued focus on development and infill drilling” and the company was in the process of acquiring new seismic data.
The total licence area covers more than 8000 square kilometres, with Oil Search holding a 91.2% stake.
Kaupa said as part of the New Guinea Energy application, the landholder group, PRK, will hold a 40% stake in the project, much larger than the 2% interest usually allotted to landholders.
New Guinea Energy chairman John Towner described the application as a new kind of partnership between landholders and explorers in PNG.
“This would be a first in Papua New Guinea where the landholders become a major stakeholder in a natural resource licence and participate from the ground floor. The area is surrounded by producing fields which should make it very prospective for oil and gas,” he said.
“I would like to see more ventures of this nature in the PNG oil and gas industry and the mining sector. Joint ventures in which the landholders participate as significant stakeholders will help fast-track development of those resources, avoiding confrontations as all parties are on the same side of the fence to achieve success.”
Towner said it was only fair that landholders “get a fair share of the investment to extract the natural resources” from their land.
New Guinea Energy is a private Sydney-based company with plans to list on the Australian Stock Exchange later this year.
