SINGAPORE, April 19 (Reuters) - PetroChina International has lifted a spot cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the PNG LNG project sold by Papua New Guinea's national oil company, the Chinese state oil and gas trader said on Friday.

This is the first sale of the super-chilled fuel the Pacific island nation's state-owned Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited (KPHL) has made, the Chinese firm said in a statement on its social media WeChat platform.

KPHL sold the cargo via a tender in February that was awarded to PetroChina International (PCI).

The purchase of the 144,000-cubic-meter cargo marks the beginning of more LNG trade between the two countries both in spot and longer-term LNG deals, Li Shaolin, PCI Singapore's general manager said in the statement.

The fuel was loaded at Caution Bay on Wednesday into the 174,000 cubic-meter LNG tanker Wudang that is partly funded by PetroChina.

Kumul Petroleum, which has a 16.77% stake in the PNG LNG project that is operated by Exxon Mobil, is entitled to sell about 14 cargoes over the next four years, KPHL said on its website on Wednesday.

KPHL added that once it completes the purchase of an additional 2.6% share of the project that would allow it sell more LNG on the spot market, without specifying from whom it would purchase the stake. (Reporting by Chen Aizhu; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)