Port Moresby LNG plant to be completed early 2014

The massive PNG LNG project liquefaction and storage facility site outside Port Moresby is 30% completed and on track to be completed in early 2014, according to project manager Ron Gregory, The National reports.

Construction work at the LNG plant outside Port Moresby yesterday.-Picture by REBECCA ARNOLD of Exxon Mobil

Gregory said this yesterday when taking media representatives on a tour of the project site at what is known as Portion 152, near Papa and Lealea villages, in Central province.

“We’re about 30% complete with the project,” he said.

“We started at the end of 2010 with groundbreaking.”

The statistics of the 16km perimeter project, which currently employs over 7,000 people from all over the world, are mind-boggling.

The project site outside Port Moresby is the final stage of a 700km-plus journey from Hides, Angore (Southern Highlands) and Juha (Western).

Gregory said the main component of the project was construction of the two massive trains, which super cool the gas to a temperature of minus 272 degrees Celsius before moving them to the two mammoth tanks, which in turn move the liquid gas to waiting ships at sea for export.

The two tanks are capable of holding up to 160,000 cubic metres of liquid gas each.

“We’re looking at the end of 2013, early 2014, to complete Train 1, and then Train 2 four months later,” Gregory said.

“Then we’ll start producing LNG.

“Most of the expenditure of the plant is on these two trains.

“From the trains, the product goes out to the tanks, and then on to the vessels off shore.”

Gregory said the project currently employed up to 6,000 people from all over the world, down from 7,500 after one of the major contractors finished its job.

“We’ve gone up to 7,500 workers,” he said.

“We’re down to 6,000 now.

“If we hit our target, we should have 10,000 workers here in August this year.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do.”