Landowners ‘conned’ on LNG deals

*Hides village leader claims Govt failed to get best benefits for them
THE Government has failed to get a best deal for the country and the affected landowners, Hides landowner leader Simon Ekanda said.
In a five page statement, Mr Ekanda has alleged that certain provisions of the Oil and Gas Act had been breached.
He said section 115 of the Organic Law on Provincial and LLG and section 52 of the Oil and Gas Act, which provided for consultation among parties affected in a resource development project prior to entering into an agreement, had been ignored.
“The Government had compromised with the project proponents to the prejudice of very important provisions of two very important laws,” Mr Ekanda said.
He said pursuant to Section 165 of the Oil and Gas Act, the Government was suppose to secure 22.5% State participating equity in the PNG LNG project.
“It had totally failed to negotiate with the project proponents that the LNG project is a new petroleum project and therefore it is entitled to acquire 22.5%.”
“What a pity that the Government was too soft to accept 19.4%.”
Mr Ekanda said leading up to the negotiation of the LNG Gas agreement, the project proponents had asked for amendments to specific provisions of the Oil and Gas Act to give special rights to them to begin early works well before important issues were discussed and agreed in a development forum.
“Starting early works before the signing of an important agreement during a development forum pursuant to Section 48 of the Oil and Gas Act unnecessarily put pressure on the beneficiaries (affected landowners, LLG’s, provincial government and even National Government) to support the project even the terms were to the disadvantage of the host country and its citizens.”
Mr Ekanda also said the gas agreement also provided too many incentives to the LNG project proponents.
He said another contentious issue is the social mapping and landowner identification as provided for by the Oil and Gas Act.
“Licensee must undertake full-scale social mapping and landowner identification studies prior to the granting of a petroleum development licence. He said ExxonMobil and Oil Search must admit that they had failed to conduct these studies. 30 June 2009