ABSTRACT: The Oil and Gas Reserves of Papua New Guinea

HALSTEAD, PHILIP H., Scientific Software-Intercomp, Denver, CO, BERNARD PAWIH and JACK SARI, Department of Minerals and Energy, Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Oil exports are commencing this year some eighty years after the first oil seeps in Papua New Guinea (PNG) were reported. Massive investments made by the Chevron group in the Kutubu Development Plan have made this production a reality.

For planning, reserve management and budgetary purposes the Government of PNG decided to assess the quantities of the reserves presently defined according to Possible, Probable, and Proven reserve categories as well as to investigate the economics of further hydrocarbon development. The reserve quantities determined by category are presented as well as the definitions used in the categorization.

This study has been carried out as an audit of reserves determined by B. P., Chevron, Command, DuPont, I.P.C., Santos, Trend and earlier operators for the Hides, Angore, Agogo, Hedinia, Iagifu, Juha, P'nyang, Southeast Hedinia, Southeast Mananda, Usano, Barikewa, Bwata, Iehi, Kuru, Puri, Southeast Gobe, Tarim, Pandora, Elevala, Ketu, Uramu and Pasca hydrocarbon discoveries.

The reserves of Papua New Guinea occur in Miocene reefs where hydrocarbons have been proven offshore and onshore as well as in Cretaceous/Jurassic sandstones in the faulted anticlines of the Papuan Thrust Belt and foreland.

With the construction of the pipeline to the coast as part of the Kutubu Development plan, the oil fields of the Papuan Thrust Belt are commercial. However the commerciality of the large gas and condensate fields in the thrust belt as well as the Miocene reef gas fields is probably dependent on development of gas utilization or export plans such as Methane or LNG plants.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91015©1992 AAPG International Conference, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia, August 2-5, 1992 (2009)