ExxonMobil supports EITI

Business

By GEDION TIMOTHY
EXXONMOBIL PNG says it strongly supports Papua New Guinea’s efforts to achieve Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative candidacy.
The initiative is a global standard which sets the yardstick for implementing countries to be measured against in their effort to improve transparency and accountability in the management of revenues derived from oil, gas and minerals.
The National had sought clarification from ExxonMobil whether, as the operator of the PNG LNG Project, it urged the Bank of Papua New Guinea not to publish LNG exports figures in its trade statistics published in March this year.
The Bank of PNG had deliberately omitted the LNG exports on the trade table with a footnote saying “LNG export volumes were not provided due to concern by the company on disclosure of information”.
BPNG declined to comment when approached for a clarification on Friday.
The ExxonMobil PNG spokesperson said: “ExxonMobil PNG strongly supports Papua New Guinea’s efforts to achieve Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) candidacy, and have been – along with other industry and civil society stakeholders – part of the process alongside the PNG Government.
“Good governance and revenue transparency are critical to ensure that the value of the country’s natural gas resources leads to a higher standard of living and increased opportunities for the people of Papua New Guinea.
“Our revenue details are included in the most recent reports (2013 year) and we publish our annualised production figures, which was 7.4MTPA (million tonne per annum) in 2015.
“To date 237 cargoes of LNG have been shipped. PNG LNG commenced production in 2014.”