Today Kumul Petroleum Holdings awarded a contract to OilMin Holdings Limited to carry out seismic work in two petroleum retention licences where KPHL is the operator. General Manager, Fintan Lalor, signed the contract on behalf of OilMin.

Kumul Petroleum managing director, Wapu Sonk, said,”This contract award is the next step in our management of the petroleum retention licences awarded to KPHL by DPE. We have engaged OiMin to shoot a total of 79 kilometres of seismic, in six lines, over the Kimu and Barikewa fields in Gulf and Western provinces.”

“This is the first time that a national company has engaged in petroleum exploration in PNG.”

Mr Sonk advised,”The purpose of this seismic work is to gather additional information on the petroleum resources already discovered in these two licences, to hopefully increase the confirmed volumes of oil and gas they contain, as well as improve further exploration targets.”

“Once we have a better idea of the oil and gas volumes in these licences, we can assess the economic feasibility of monetising this resource, and select a development path.”

“As approved by the KPHL Board, the contract has a value of K79 million, this cost split almost equally between the two licences. We are happy to engage OilMin, a national company who have many years experience in the management of remote field operations in the country and employ many Papua New Guineans.”

Explaining some of the detail of the planned seimic, Mr Sonk outlined that, “the proposed work is in remote areas and will be heli-supported. Seismic line cutting is a labour intensive activity and it is likely that there will be 3-400 casual labourers engaged by OilMin during the programme.”

“OilMin, as principal contractor, will be responsible for all aspects of the programme including seismic data collection, helicopter support, medical and security services on site. This seismic programme will start this month and should be complete by March 2025.”

“I am glad that Kumul Petroleum Holdings is now actively involved in upstream petroleum exploration and investigating the possibility of further commercialisation of PNG’s gas resources, in licences where these discoveries had previously been considered uneconomic stranded fields.”