Tokyo Electric power latest to sign for PNG gas  

Gas deals in Australia and PNG seem to be the hot topic of the week - the latest one is Wheatstone customer TEP signing up another supplier in Papua New Guinea. The SMH reports - Tokyo latest to sign for PNG gas.

THE $US15 billion ($A16.2 billion) Papua New Guinea liquefied natural gas project has signed another off-take agreement, this time with Japan, as the joint-venture partners prepare to give the development the go-ahead today.

Joint-venture partners ExxonMobil (which owns 41.5 per cent), Oil Search (34 per cent) and Santos (17.7 per cent) told the market late yesterday that Tokyo Electric Power Company had signed on to receive 1.8 million tonnes of LNG annually over 20 years.

This was two days after TEPCO signed Australia's largest trade deal to receive 4.1 million tonnes of LNG from Chevron's Wheatstone project in Western Australia in an agreement worth a reported $90 billion.

The TEPCO/ExxonMobil deal provided further evidence that the PNG project would get the green light today and came after China's Sinopec said last week it would take 2 million tonnes a year from the 6.3 million tonnes-a-year project, which would deliver first gas by late 2013 or early 2014.