Make terms reasonable

Letters

FORMER Oil Search managing director Peter Botten has been explicit in saying that the terms demanded by the State negotiating team are unworkable.
If accepted by Exxon and Oil Search they would not be able to earn a return on investment.
They are prepared to write-off the huge amount of money spent thus far.
The reason for them to be curious is clear: there is a lot happening in the oil and gas world.
There are huge investments being made offshore in Mozambique with Total, a major player along with several other big companies.
The Sangomar field off shore Senegal is a huge oil and gas development, initial production of 100,000 bbls of oil per day will be expanded and a gas component added by 2022.
This development is well placed to ship to Europe.
The economy of Guyana is set to be transformed with the development of offshore gas, this year, Exxon is the major player.
There is a lot of actions offshore in Western and Northern Australia and Shell’s giant floating platform has recently been installed and is now operating.
Stranded gas from several fields in Australia will find a route to market shortly, as new pipelines are completed.
There are a lot of other significant projects being undertaken as well in Trinidad, Mexico and Namibia.
About 70 years ago, a prime minister called Mohammad Mosaddegh won office on a slogan almost identical to PM Marape’s take PNG back.
The Abadan refinery of the Anglo Iranian Oil Co. (BP, today) was then the world’s largest.
He took it all back: so the companies simply stopped taking Iranian oil, sourcing supply elsewhere.
A coup toppled Mosaddegh and Iran lost out dreadfully, unable to sell its oil, its economy collapsed.
The memory of the role of the US in the coup provides part of the explanation for the intense hatred of the US by the geriatric Khameni Junta.
The decision recently by Russia to leave the OPEC+1 cartel caused an immediate drop in the oil price of 30 per cent.
This coupled with the previous decline occasioned by Covid-19 illustrates just how fragile the oil and gas market is.
Horizon Oil has announced that due to the Government created uncertainty, it has written down its investment in Western – Foreshore gas fields (Elevala, Ketu, Stanley etc) by 94 per cent, a write-off of K170 million approximately.
For the same reason, Repsol’s sale to the Chinese has collapsed.
Put simply the market outlook, that just a couple of years ago looked so promising has changed and the current outlook is far more competitive.
Kerenga Kua needs to ensure that PNG demands do not mean PNG misses out entirely.
As now seems very likely.

R.W. Bolling

2 comments

  • Bolling appears to be a tool of Big Oil. Anyone interested in the Mosaddeg era should read the corrupt immoral dealings of the USA and British governments’ secret services who conducted the coup to depose the elected prime Minister of Iran. The elite idiots of both nations were prompted by their greed to control the huge Iranian oilfields. Operation Ajax as the covert actions to provoke a coup was called (and there are USA declassified reports of the events much to the annoyance of its British ally.) The reason for the coup was OIL. Just as we are seeing in the tussle for cheap oil for Exxon Mobil in the P’nyang oil field in Western province.
    Bolling is raising a red herring of trying to blackmail by claiming PNG will be losing if they don’t submit to Exxon. Guess he wants PNG to export more of its rich inheritance for $30 dollars a barrel.
    The filthy oilygarchs of this world will stop at nothing to get their slimy hands on everyone’s oil Like The Trumpet in the White House claiming his right to steal Syrian oil
    What the UK & USA did in 1953 is still in 2000 a catalyst for the horrors in the Middle East and the cause of intense dislike of the USA the so called ‘land of the free’ and even today their efforts to subvert any nation they cannot control.
    Stand firm PNG

  • lets keep the oil reserves and other non-renewable for our kids and their next generation, and maybe will come a time when we will need the most. PNG should not worry and give away all in panic. we concentrate on other income sources like Tourism, agricultural products(coffee, cocoa, copra, vanilla, fresh farm food, etc,etc, stop imports of stuffs we can produce locally, esp agricultural products. there are avenues to minimise imports and maximise export for economic stability in the absence of non-renewable extractions.. the are times for changes and adaptation, as was proven scientifically in the Theory of Evolution.
    . we can feel the pinch for THE SACRIFICE for a short while. but thats worth it to mould and shape us to the next level for complete independant. our population is small and with one mind, one people, one country shall we stand strong to move forward

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