Maipakai applauds InterOil’s gas bid

MEMBER for Kikori and Internal Affairs minister Mark Maipakai has congratulated InterOil Corp Ltd and its joint venture partners for the development of PNG’s second LNG project to be developed in Kikori, Gulf.
Maipakai said it was about time developers delivered for the greatest happiness of the greatest number in the country and not only for economic convenience that was here today and gone tomorrow.
In a recent meeting with the developers, the minister retracted his outbursts in the media saying that he was satisfied with the information from the InterOil management and its involvement for the project in his electorate.
InterOil confirmed that Energy World International consortium of companies, invited by the Gulf government through the governor, will develop the pipeline site facility and the stripping plant in Gulf.
They said they will not develop any other sites apart from the proposed sites at Orokolo Bay in Ihu district and at Poroi in upper Purari in the Baimuru district.
Orokolo Bay is the shortest route from the Elk/Antelope gas fields in Purari, where Japanese firm Mitsui Ltd will build the stripping plant at Poroi.
Maipakai said the project demarcation of the Orokolo Bay lies within the West Vailala and east of Aivei rivers, which is a quarter of the Ihu district.
He said the other three quarters would not get  any benefits or spin-offs as far as service deliveries were concerned.
Maipakai said therefore social mapping must be done first to determine the other three quarters and why they were not considered in this deal.
“While I fully support development and developers, we are duty bound to put our peoples’ interests first, and this means a social mapping should be conducted before any agreement for construction is signed”, he said.
He said he did not want a repeat of the ExxonMobil-led LNG project where genuine landowners were left out and a social mapping had to carried out.