THE first lengths of the planned 407km-long offshore pipeline for the $US15 billion PNG LNG project have been laid on the seafloor, near the LNG plant under construction about 20km northwest of Port Moresby.

The Semac 1 preparing to start the lay of the offshore pipeline for the PNG LNG Project.

Two offshore pipeline-laying vessels, the Semac 1 and the Castoro 10, are expected to complete the job in 2012.

Project operator ExxonMobil said the first part of the pipelay was the shore pull – which involved pulling the 36-inch diameter pipe to shore so it could be connected to the pipe on land.

More than 700km of pipe, onshore and offshore, is required to transport the gas from Papua New Guinea’s Southern Highlands and Western Provinces to the proposed two-train, 6.6 million tonnes per annum LNG plant near the Gulf of Papua.

PNG LNG is scheduled to start producing from 2014 and is expected to deliver more than 9 trillion cubic feet of gas over its 30-year life.

Partners in PNG LNG are ExxonMobil (33.2%), Oil Search (29%), the PNG government’s Independent Public Business Corporation (16.6%), Santos (13.5%), Merlin Petroleum (4.7%), the state-owned Minerals Resource Development Company (2.8%) and Petromin (0.2%).

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