I think OSH still has a stake in PNG LNG, although it's operated by Exxon? ......
if LNG project equities not paid
By Papua New Guinea correspondent
Eric Tlozek
Updated 49 minutes ago
Landowners at Papua New Guinea's biggest resources project are threatening to create "chaos" if the PNG Government does not honour a deal to give them equity.
PNG Government-owned company Kumul Petroleum Holdings has withdrawn an offer to finance landowners' purchase of 4.27 per cent of the PNG LNG project, after some complained it was unfair.
The Government now says landowners need to find more than a billion US dollars to buy the equity before their option expires at the end of 2016.
PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said the state was offering a discounted price because the landowners were not able to raise the money.
"We are trying to help," he said.
"If they don't want our help we are quite happy to walk away, simple as that."
Mr O'Neill said the negotiations were becoming frustrating.
"I'm getting fed up talking about the same issue over and over again," he said.
"I think Papua New Guinea has got a lot more challenges, other issues that I can spend my time on."
Deal accused of being stacked against landowners
Landowners have been questioning the deal, saying it looked like the Government was trying to make them pay for a controversial loan it took to buy shares in Oil Search, one of the project partners.
Arthur Somare is the former State Enterprise Minister who helped negotiate the initial agreement with the landowners.
"It is stacked up the wrong way against landowners, they were asked to take on a huge debt, a debt burden that currently sits with a state company."
Villagers from the highlands and the gulf regions of PNG are entitled to the opportunity to purchase equity in the PNG LNG project, as part of their original "umbrella benefits sharing agreement" to host it on their land.
Mr Somare — now a consultant for the provincial Governments and landowners — said the equity option was meant to be offered on what is called "benefit sharing terms", meaning the price and arrangements would be negotiated in a way that recognises landowners' rights to get a return from the project.
'Tremendous resentment and frustration'
Landowners are particularly worried about the Government's approach.
The chairman of one of the landowner groups, Stanley Hogga Piawi, said people will react badly if they do not get their share of the project.
"Governments can come and go, but the agreement must be maintained," he said.
"[The Government should] honour the previous government's agreement.
"My people must get the maximum benefit that has been sealed and signed.
"If you cannot honour that then I'm sorry, it's going to be chaos."
The landowners are already frustrated because the PNG Government has not yet paid their royalties and development grants.
In August some landowners blocked roads to the project's conditioning plant at Hides in protest at the lack of payments.
The Government has previously said the money has been held up by court proceedings and delays in landowner identification.
Australian National University PhD candidate Michael Main — who has just spent seven months in the project area studying the impacts of development — said people are getting sick of waiting for them.
"There's tremendous resentment and frustration directed almost exclusively towards politicians," he said.
Threats of rocket launcher attacks
Landowners are warning that frustration could turn to violence against the project.
"People down in Komo were telling me — these are people who I'd seen armed with high-powered military weapons – telling me they also had shoulder-mounted rocket launchers and mag-fired machine guns," Mr Main said.
"Whether or not they actually have those weapons I don't know.
"They were telling me about plans to … attack the wellheads with their rocket-launchers.
"The landowner leadership up there is not advocating anything like that, they know it's not in anyone's interest, but there's absolutely no way I would want to predict the future," he said.
Mr Main said cash was not landowners' major concern — people wanted to know why the project has not brought much-needed services.
"Really what people were talking about was 'well, hang on, where's our first class hospital, where are our big high schools, where are our roads'?" he said.
"It's the tangible evidence on the ground of the development that's expected from the LNG project.
"That's going to be the defining issue, I think."
The operator of the PNG LNG project, ExxonMobil PNG, declined to comment.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-...ten-violence-if-lng-equities-not-paid/8088842
