Santos has picked up more exploration ground in Papua New Guinea, striking a $US40 million deal to buy a 50 per cent stake in a licence from New Guinea Energy, which had previously agreed to sell it to US oil giant ExxonMobil.

The deal involves New Guinea’s half-share of the PPL269 licence and follows Santos’s acquisition last September of stakes in two exploration permits in PNG’s Western Province from Canada’s Talisman Energy.