The latest entrant to show interest is Malaysia's largest engineering firm Ranhill Bhd, which is also interested in taking part in oil exploration and gas sales in Papua New Guinea.

Ranhill says that it has been offered a stake in the project and has also been busy talking to the PNG government for several months about helping to fund the investment.

Currently Oil Search and Exxon Mobil are negotiating with a number of potential foundation customers in order to secure sufficient demand to justify the beginning of construction.

The companies require sales of between 100 and 150 petajoules per year for the project to become commercial with up to around 80 petajoules per year sold to date with WMC Resources and Energex leading the way.

Malaysia's state-owned Petronas and AGL have also maintained an interest in the project with an agreement to build the onshore Australian section of the pipeline if the venture gets final approval.

However several large gas sales contracts around Queensland, including supplying BHPB's Cannington Mine and QAL's Gladstone Alumina refinery, have recently gone to more secure production zones including the Cooper Basin and the state's booming coal bed methane sector.