OIL Search PNG paid US$700 million (K2.3billion) to landowner companies between 2010 and 2020, according to a company official.
Senior sustainable development manager Lucinda Gulluman-Kisip said during a workshop that the oil company had supported landowners in building foundations of business structures, systems, training and maintaining compliance monitoring.
“We have been impacted not just in the business development space but other areas since February 2019 by the Covid-19 in the way we work with our landowner companies and also with the fall in oil prices,” Gulluman-Kisip said. “So between 2010 and 2020, we have about US$700 million, about K2 billion in PNG kina that has been paid in contracts to landowner companies.
“This represent about 35 per cent of the payment being made to PNG suppliers and contractors.
“There is a lot of work still to be done with the landowner companies and last year we revised our forward landowner companies business development approach.
“In terms of the outcome and what we want to archive out of the work that we do in business development, it is about the benefit incomes streams that flows down to the communities and helping the landowner companies be financially viable outside of their relationship with Oil Search.
“As part of that, we want to support them to diversify their business.”
Oil Search’s current footprint covers one million hectares of land, production and pipeline licenses, retention and exploration licenses, six producing oilfields, one producing gas field and a major gas development opportunity.
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It covers three provinces: Hela, Southern Highlands and Gulf.