Lihir Gold is poised to overtake Oil Search as Papua New Guinea's largest listed company on the Australian Stock Exchange, following uncertainty over the project to pipe natural gas from the Southern Highlands to Australia.
The newspaper, The National, reports that when trading ended last Friday, Oil Search had become the 67th largest company on the ASX in terms of its market capitalisation, with Lihir Gold following closely behind.
Oil Search had a market capitalisation of 3.19 billion US dollars compared with Lihir Gold on 3.18 billion US dollars.
Oil Search shares have been adversely affected by the news that AGL Ltd and its Malaysian partner Petronas, are not keen to build or own the Australian section of the PNG gas pipeline.
Lihir Gold however has been riding high following the announcement of plans to spend between close to 170 to 340 million U.S. dollars to expand production beyond the million ounce level.
