Papua New Guinea's Planning Minister, Paul Tiensten, says PNG aims to become an important liquefied natural gas exporter by bringing its first project on stream by late 2013.
The US$10 billion liquefaction plant run by ExxonMobil has a capacity of 6-point-3 million tonnes per year.
A final investment decision on the project will be taken in May 2009.
Mr Tiensten says Papua New Guinea first cargo will hopefully be in 2013.
The National newspaper reports that PNG is an oil producer but does not yet export gas, although significant amounts of gas has been found in the country.
