State team ‘marked up’ gas deal

TWINZA Oil Ltd says the State negotiating team (SNT) for the Pasca A gas project has “marked up” the gas agreement.
Chairman and chief executive officer Ian Munro, in a statement yesterday, said: “After a month of silence on the state-side, the SNT chairman returned an extensive mark-up of the agreement late on Aug 6.
“This document bears no resemblance to the agreement of July 6, containing over 2,400 changes in only 76 pages, and is essentially a new agreement.
“As announced by Minister Kua on July 13, Twinza can confirm that the gas agreement delivers all of the Government’s stated objectives from the project and would provide the highest State take of any resource development in PNG, over 60 per cent of project value (55 per cent nominal State take).”
He said Twinza was seeking clarity from Petroleum Minister Kerenga Kua as to whether there was support for foreign direct investment into the country and that the State would honour the deal of July 6.
“It is extremely disappointing that certain state actors appear to be following their own agendas rather than those of the prime minister, demanding new terms and revising terms that were announced on July 13,” he said.
“Indeed, this is the third time since the negotiations commenced over 12 months ago that the SNT has changed agreed terms, which were originally announced by the prime minister on Sept 24, 2020.
“Twinza, as a company with a proud investment history in PNG, will naturally continue to honour the deal struck on July 6, 2021.”
Attempts to get comments from Kua and Department of Petroleum and Energy yesterday were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, former prime minister and Ialibu-Pangia MP Peter O’Neill said the announcement by Twinza was another blow to investor confidence in PNG.
“Any commitment by Government is on behalf of eight million people, it’s not anyone’s private business.
“Like all announcements it will amount to nothing.
“As a result, we have had no new investments in country over the last two years.
“Just stop the talk and dissolve Parliament and let’s go the elections.”