Everything You Need to Know About Papua New Guinea’s Massive LNG Project
by JACQUES MOSS Since its beginnings as a failed pipeline project in the early 2000’s, through to the announcement of a proposed doubling of production capacity earlier this year, Papua New Guinea’s PNG LNG has had a bumpy road to travel. Its past has been chequered by violence, vandalism, natural disaster, and seemingly insurmountable technical hurdles. Here’s the story behind one of the world’s largest, most controversial, and most challenging LNG projects. Inception of PNG LNG PNG LNG traces its origins back to a proposal by the Australian company Oil Search Ltd, known as the PNG Gas Project. The idea behind this first project was to bring gas from Papua New Guinea’s southern highlands to consumers in Australia via a 3000km pipeline. Oil Search joined forces with ExxonMobil in 2001, but the project ran into problems. These came to a head when the Australian Gas Light-Petronas Consortium pulled out of laying the Australian section of the pipeline because of concerns over a lack of