Papua New Guinea's state-owned oil and gas company, Kumul Petroleum, has completed its seismic programme on the Kimu and Barikewa licences where it is the operator.
Kumul Petroleum Managing Director, Wapu Sonk said, 'On Wednesday 26th of March we shot the last hole on a seismic line in the Kimu licence and camp demobilisation has begun. This is the culmination of a seismic programme we have been undertaking in our two petroleum retention licences.'
'The purpose of this seismic work is to gather additional geological information on the petroleum resources already discovered in these two licences, to increase the volumes of oil and gas reserves. The second objective is to identify and firm up siting of some delineation wells and exploration targets.'
Mr Sonk expressed great satisfaction given the safety standards and records that have been archieved which he attributed to the experience of the Operator, Oilmin Ltd as well as KPHL’s staff who have managed the operations. This is the first exploration work done by KPHL since its inception in 2010 to where it is today.
Mr Sonk said, 'We have come a long way, looking forward to the results and the planning for the next phase of development.'
Mr Sonk outlined that the seismic campaign had been carried out by contractor OilMin Holdings and taken approximately six months. He noted that seismic line cutting is a labour intensive activity and the six seismic lines required the employment of 477 local people in remote areas of Gulf and Western provinces.
'Kumul Petroleum and OilMin have worked closely with locally impacted communities and although seismic work only requires company presence in an area for a relatively short time, assistance has been provided to local primary schools at Kaiam and Kumusi. Without community support this field work would not have been possible.' Mr Sonk said.
'Kumul Petroleum is expending a considerable sum in the offshore and onshore petroleum retention licences that it holds in order to delineate the oil and gas resources they contain and formulate a development concept that is economically feasible.'
'Kumul Petroleum Holdings is now directly involved in upstream petroleum exploration and the possibility of further commercialisation of PNG’s gas resources, in licences where these discoveries had previously been considered uneconomic and stranded fields.' Mr Sonk said.
Mr Sonk stated that it would take the next 6 months for interpretation and integration of the seismic data into the existing geological models.
Source: Kumul Petroleum
