Dept to pay first batch of benefits

THE Petroleum and Energy Department is preparing to pay the first batch of benefits of the plant site landowners in Central, Petroleum and Energy Minister Nixon Duban says.
Duban made the comment following recent debates in Australia on the protracted delay in the payment of landowner benefits associated with the Papua New Guinea LNG Project.
Project security issues and investment security concern were also raised.
It was reported that Western Australia’s Senator Scott Ludlam had asked why the Australian government through its EFIC (Export Finance Insurance Corporation) had not taken measures to ensure royalty payments were made.
In a statement yesterday, Duban said the delay in the payment of landowner benefits was because many legitimate landowners and clans in areas in the upstream segment of the project had not been properly identified.
This is particularly in Hides PDL-01, Hides PDL-7, Angore PDL-08 and Juha PDL-09.
“While the majority of the work has been done already, these four upstream gas field areas need to be fully covered in terms of concluding the identification and vetting process,” he said.
“We would not have gone through this costly exercise if Section 47 of the Oil and Gas Act had been fully enforced from the outset, where a project developer is required to undertake full-scale social mapping and landowner identification studies.”