LOs side with government

The National Business

A GROUP of landowners from Western says they support the national government to continue negotiations on the development of the P’nyang project in the province.
A spokesperson from the impacted villages Edwin Ingsim said the landowners supported the state negotiating team and wanted to see negotiations concluded and the gas agreement signed.
Ingsim said this yesterday following an outburst by North Fly MP James Donald on his social media page (Facebook) this week claiming that the holder of the Petroleum Retention Licence (PRL) 3 or P’nyang was holding onto the licence illegally.
“The PRL3 licence for P’nyang has expired in May, 2016, after all the extensions were exhausted by successive governments,” Donald wrote on his page.
“ExxonMobil held onto the licence for more than 20 years.
“If the law says it has expired, so be it that it’s expired and return the licence back to the State.
“My proposal would be to return the licence back to the State and the licence can be issued to our own national (state owned entity) company like Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited (KPHL).
“Because KPHL does not have capacity it can put out a bid for a possible genuine investor to purchase into some portion and we can go into development deal owned by a nationally-owned company.
“This is how we can make money for our country through this licence.
“The PRL3 licence itself is worth billions of dollars.”
However, Ingsim and the landowners from villages in the 15 licensed areas who met in Port Moresby yesterday refuted Donald’s outburst.
“We, the landowner leaders of the 15 licensed area villages of the P’nyang LNG project are united and we are in support of the Government, to continue negotiations and decide for us as mandated by the law of our land,” Ingsim said.

5 comments

  • Landowners of P’nyang need to learn from the benefits of the Ok Tedi mine and assist where ever they can to get the maximum benefits appropriately from P’nyang.

  • Oh the clever resource companies who have perfected their ability over hundred years to divide and rule gullible rural landowners and so get their hands on the next very profitable oil and gas or copper or gold etc.
    All impacted LOs should get togetehr and provide a united front to deal with the Cartel who want to grab the P’ynag OIl/LNG.
    The world is full of such companies exploiting the poor everywhere with promises of ‘Gold at the end of the rainbow’ if only people would allow the mining etc
    Find it dig sell it leave the mess for the LOs to sort out afterwards

  • LOs should liaise with the Governor to come up with one voice direction then to sidestep with the Company indirectly through Government party. It seems they have not learned from the consequential impacts of other existing projects.

  • MP Donald only wanted the best for you LO. So stop this nonsense and go support him and progress it for maximum LO benefits. Rush rush will only get you the few LO reps benefiting while the rest of your people will be fooled with little as is the case with the PNG LNG.

  • Why leaving out the Governor and the members in such negotiations? Its a desperate attempt by some people by using a handful of landowners who probably live in Port Moresby.

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