Papua New Guinea: Pipeline customers 'ready to sign up'
"Post Courier" and "The National", Port Moresby, Friday August 7
BRISBANE: Gas sales agreements for the proposed $A3.6 billion gas pipeline project from Papua New Guinea to Queensland were expected to be finalised within a month, the pipeline's owner, builder and operator AGL said yesterday. The pipeline, worth $A1.5 billion of the total project, will run 2600km from the PNG Highlands to Gladstone in southeast Queensland with a ''spur line'' into Townsville to take power to industrial users.
Energy company Chevron has signed a co-operation agreement with aluminium producer Comalco, which was considering building a $A1.5 billion alumina refinery in Gladstone. The refinery would help make the pipeline viable.
AGL's chief general manager of commercial development, Bill Armitage, told reporters he and PNG Minister for Petroleum and Energy Sir Rabbie Namaliu had met the pipeline's sponsors in Brisbane yesterday. He said it was important to ''get firm agreements in place'' with Comalco and other potential users of the pipeline.
''We believe that can be done in a very short time frame,'' he said.
''Everything is moving in the right direction and those agreements can be hopefully finalised within a month.'' PNG Prime Minister Bill Skate this week signed a memorandum of understanding with Australian counterpart John Howard, giving approval for fast tracking the pipeline. Queensland Premier Peter Beattie signed another MOU on behalf of the state government.
Mr Namaliu yesterday toured the Brisbane offices of AGL, which will partner Malaysian-based Petronas in the project. Sir Rabbie said the gas pipeline was a ''window of opportunity'' to develop PNG gas fields and the government wanted to take advantage of it. ''But . . . it's obviously a question of user, customers and pricing and that's an extremely important and critical question.''
In the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, AGL and Petronas yesterday signed a joint development agreement to take the pipeline project towards the implementation phase. The pipeline was expected to employ around 2500 people during its construction, with another 400 employed indirectly after the project was completed, Mr Armitage said.
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