Chinese player entrusted with flagship FLNG project unlocking ‘stranded’ offshore gas fields in Oceania

Wison New Energies (WNE), a China-based provider of clean energy services, has picked up a new assignment with Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited (KPHL) related to Papua New Guinea’s first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) unit, which is planned to be deployed to the Gulf of Papua in Oceania to assist the Pacific island country in commercializing its offshore gas fields, as the national oil company (NOC) sees LNG as an essential transition fuel in the domestic and international efforts to move to a greener future.

Wison New Energies and Kumul Petroleum signed an FLNG pre-front-end engineering and development (FEED) contract on October 18, 2024. The pre-FEED is due to be completed by June 2025. With an expected capacity of 1.5 million tons per annum (mtpa), Papua New Guinea’s first FLNG is anticipated to help develop the resources from the Pandora and Uramu offshore gas fields.

While emphasizing its commitment to offering efficient and environmentally friendly FLNG solutions, Wison highlighted the deal’s ability to advance key national projects in Papua New Guinea, marking a significant milestone for the firm in Oceania. The company underlines that its team is ready to draw on its “expertise and experience in the clean energy sector to ensure successful project execution with the highest standards of quality.”

Wapu Sonk, Kumul Petroleum’s Managing Director, commented: “Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited has for some time been investigating how to commercialise stranded gas resources, particularly in its petroleum retention licences (PRLs 47 & 50) over the Pandora and Uramu gas fields offshore in Gulf Province, this is a critical step and in the right direction, one we are extremely excited about as the national petroleum company.

“KPHL has evaluated these gas discoveries and completed reserve certification, which has given us confidence in moving to this stage of the commercialisation plan. KPHL is 100% license holder of the two PRL offshore licenses at the moment and intends to farm down post this study to interested partners who see value in the 1.5mtpa FLNG project in PNG.”

According to Kumul Petroleum’s Managing Director, the contract was awarded to Shanghai Wison Offshore & Marine and Damien Nguyen, Chief Technical Officer, who signed on behalf of the company said Wison was delighted to work closely with Kumul Petroleum in its ambitious plan to commercialize gas fields in Papua New Guinea.

“This pre-FEED study is necessary step to ensure that we understand the full scope, cost, schedule, risk and the full economic value before making a decision on moving to FEED and Final investment decision (FID). The Pre-Feed study is expected to take 8-12 months, which should lead to FEED thereafter and FID sometime in 2026 or 2027,” added Sonk.

The FLNG deal comes months after Wison won a $1 billion contract with Malaysia’s Genting to construct an FLNG unit for deployment in Indonesia. Recently, the firm also handed out a transport and installation contract to France’s GEOCEAN for an FLNG unit, destined to work on a project off the coast of Congo.