Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has commended Oil Search Limited’s offshore drilling campaign inthe Gulf Province.
He madethe remark after touringthe company’s offshore drilling rig last week.
The Gulf province has been ranked as one ofthe lowest performing provinces in PNG with social indicators far from perfectobut that may about to change. Oil Search limited has discovered offshore oil and gas deposits inthe area.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, accompanlied by Gulf Governor Havila Kavo, saw first-hand current drilling operations atthe KiduKidu well site.
The Stena Clyde drilling program isthe first offshore drilling program in PNG for 12 years and is being carrlied out at a cost of more than 210 million US dollars.
The rig has been in operation for six months, starting withthe drilling ofthe Flinders 1 and Hagana 1 wells, both inthe petroleum prospecting licence 244 and Kidukidu, which is in PPL 385.
Mr O’Neill saidthe tour was very informative, and it was his first time to visit an offshore drilling rig.
He said it was important to get an appreciation ofthe challenges faced by companies like Oil Search.
“Oil Search is an important stakeholder in Papua New Guineaand an important player inthe oiling industry in our country…so I think it is fair that we continue to supportthe company,” he said.
He was also impressed withthe number of Papua New Guineas working onthe rig site.
“It was good to see ten Papua New Guineas living and working onthe offshore drill site,” said O’Neill.
Oil Search Managing Director Peter Betten saidthe company wantedthe Prime minister to seethe semisubmersible rig for himself. One built usingthe latest state ofthe art technology.
“Kidukidu is reaching a critical stage now where overthe next couple of days we’ll be carrying out a number of tests and logging, and evaluation of what we found,” he said.
Mr Betten said Oil Search has drilled three wells outthere following a very comprehensive 3D seismic programme that took place in 2010 and 2011. Ofthe three wells, two discoveries have been made.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y0ASDU9hWX8%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26wmode%3Dopaque%26showinfo%3D0%26showsearch%3D0%26rel%3D0
previous post