Total officials visit project areas in Gulf

Business

By SHIRLEY MAULUDU
TOTAL officials are visiting the 43 villages in the Petroleum Retention License (PRL) 15 area of the Papua LNG project in Gulf which may be affected when the project starts, an official says.
Environment and Social manager Jeremy Roeygens said the purpose of the visits was to carry out environment studies for the project.
“So far we have got 43 villages that we have visited which are indirectly and directly impacted,” he said.
“We consider of course the villages which are nearby.
“There is no village near our operations. They are actually several kilometres away from where we are doing our operations.
“We are also considering rivers – when we have barges passing by.
“We are creating an impact on the population living here, so we also consider these areas where we call the project area of influence.
“But we don’t have direct impact yet on the people.
“However, once the project is established, obviously this may happen. But we are doing our best right now to identify as early as possible the potential impact that we may create, and can avoid.” Meanwhile, Total held its Papua LNG environment inception report roadshow this week in Port Moresby.
According to the company, delivery of the report was the first step in the process of obtaining an environment permit for the project.
The company said the inception report was important “because we can avoid impacting those people”.
“We don’t want to displace people. It is the right time to avoid these things,” it said.
“We don’t want to disturb villages and we don’t want to disturb the lives of those people.”