French supermajor TotalEnergies has kicked off the fully integrated front-end engineering and design phase for the Papua LNG liquefied natural gas project in Papua New Guinea.

Papua LNG, which is expected to have up to 6 million tonnes per annum of liquefaction capacity, is now targeting first production by the end of 2027 or in early 2028.

Project co-venturer Santos on Tuesday confirmed that, following pre-FEED studies, the Papua LNG partners have selected a concept using four electric LNG trains (e-trains) with a combined capacity of 4 million tpa to be developed within the existing PNG LNG project site in Caution Bay.