New hydrocarbon projects will bring much-needed revenue for Papua New Guinea , says the acting secretary for the PNG Department of Petroleum, Lohial Nuau.
“On the government’s radar, just like any other country, hydrocarbon projects are important because they make much-needed revenue for the economy,” he said.
Nuau said other projects on the Government’s radar were the;
- Papua LNG;
- Pasca A offshore gas condensate; and,
- Ketu-Elevala gas condensate.
He said the first key performance indicator (KPI) for this year was the landowner beneficiaries’ identification (Lobid) project for Hides
PDL 1 and PDL 7, which was completed last month and this month.
The ministerial determination will be signed early next month, which will also see the opening of accounts by the Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC).
“The second KPI was the office relocation,” Nuau said. “An agreement is in place now. I would like to tell the staff of the Government’s office allocation committee (GOAC) decision for the department to relocate to the former ExxonMobil office.
“The release agreement has been signed already with the landlord, Nasfund, and also the director for GOAC.” Nuau said the third KPI was the signing of the Papua LNG project gas agreement on March 31. “There are certain regulatory and legal requirements that are still outstanding and the Department of Petroleum and Energy (DPE) will work with
Total SA, the operator of the Papua LNG project, to resolve this.
Outstanding items are;
- Applications for petroleum development licence;
- environmental approvals from Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (Cepa);
- final Lobid and ministerial determination;
- three front-end engineering design (Feed); and,
- Final field development plan.
“I need your support,” Nuau said.
“We will together work towards completing these outstanding items and look towards signing the gas agreement at the end of March 2019.”
Nuau said work on the proposed National Petroleum Authority was in progress, with consultations with key stakeholders like PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum, State Solicitor’s Office, Department of Personnel Management and Central Agencies Coordinating Committee (CACC).
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