Paying out of royalties ‘not easy’

DEPUTY Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel says the State is fully committed to honouring all landowner commitments under the PNG LNG Project but it is not an easy task to do so.
He was commenting on protests by landowners of Angore Petroleum Development Licence Eight (PDL 8) wellhead area in Hela.
Angore wellhead landowners, through Angore Teni Apa Landowners Association (ATALA) Inc, petitioned the government three weeks ago, demanding the state, among other things, immediately release their outstanding K32 million – K12 million in business development grants and K20mil for the Angore growth centre.
Failure by the Government had resulted in the burning of plant and machinery on the project sites and blocking of road access into Angore wellheads on Tuesday.
Abel said the issue was very complex as there were real landowners as well as paper landowners.
“You’ve got the court case that is going on and you’ve got obligations from the Government,” he said.
“I think the legacy issues of not resolving the landowner identification process is making it difficult because the state is fully committed to all the UBSA (umbrella benefit-sharing agreement) and LBSA (landowners benefit-sharing agreement) and we’ve been trying to meet those.
“But it is not easy sometimes when you constantly have court cases between factions.”
Abel said the government was systematically working its way through that, including a 4.27 per cent equity.
“The royalties continue to accumulate in the banks and we have made some of these payments to the Central landowners, the plant-site landowners and we are working on releasing the money for the pipeline and we, of course, very much want to release the wellhead site landowner money,” he said.
“But there a bit of issues holding that money back and the Department of Petroleum and Energy is picking up that issue now with Justice Kandakasi and they must work through that completely and pay the landowners their outstanding commitments.”
Abel said landowners must be addressed forthwith.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill had directed Department of Petroleum to look into the landowners’ complaints and ensure their outstanding funds were paid to them.