He said this on Wednesday when commenting on a recent visit to France recently with Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and Gulf Governor Havila Kavo to discuss the project with developer Total.
“The Papua LNG project is now in serious stage of moving forward,” Micah said.
“In our discussions with senior executives of Total in France, Total gave a very clear commitment to the prime minister, to myself and the governor of Gulf that Papua LNG will be developed within the next five to six years.”
Micah said there was a third party that had expressed interest to buy out InterOil and all these commercial dealings must be completed first “before we know who are the players”.
“By law, Kumul Petroleum has got 22 per cent already in that project, so we will be a very significant shareholder and stakeholder in Papua LNG.
“Total is the operator but the sale of InterOil will have to be concluded and we will know who the real partners ar.
“Then, we move into final discussions to see how we can move this project forward.” The Naitonal