Landowners Threaten to Close the LNG Project

PNG Landowners Issue Ultimatum Over LNG Developments

Radio New Zealand, 23 December, 2011

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=65242

The head of a landowners’ group in Papua New Guinea’s Hela province claims they will shut down the huge liquified natural gas project if their demand is not met.

Aggrieved landowners stormed a key LNG project site on December the 8th, and the chairperson of the Gobe landowners group, Jerome Kairi, estimates 12-hundred now occupy the Gobe Field Engineers camp site.

Mr Kairi says they have given the government and operator of the LNG project Esso Highlands, until Saturday to meet commitments made to landowners, such as infrastructure improvements and development grants.

“I haven’t got any undertaking from both Esso Highlands and the government as to what understanding we are to reach. If that fails then the whole oil operation and the whole LNG operation would have to come to a stop and we are going to demand the company to evacuate and have the project closed forever.”

Jerome Kairi.

The Esso Highlands spokesperson Rebecca Arnold says the main issue is around government commitments to historic oil project memoranda of agreement, which do not relate to the LNG gas project.

2000 Landowners Storm LNG Project Site

Key LNG Prject Site in Gobe Under Threat

John Pangkatana,

Post Courier, December 22, 2011, pg.1

The political stalemate in Port Moresby is over but a turmoil of another sort is brewing.

This time it is in the new Hela Province, where a key project site is under siege by aggrieved landowners and threatening stability in the billion kina oil and gas developments there.

Landowners in Gobe have put the Government on notice to settle their outstanding committments at PDL 4 Project site within the next 48 hours.

After storming the project site on December 8, landowners from the Samberigi area have been keeping a vigil with their numbers now swelling up to 2000 people at the Gobe Field Engineers (GFE) camp site.

Landowner representative Mr Max Apua reiterated his earlier call that they are not budging until the National Government solves their issue.

Speaking by phone from the project site yesterday, Mr Apua said his people want the Government to solve their grievances on-site. Mr Apua, who is also a councillor for Samberigi in the Erave Local Level Government said the Government and developer Esso Highlands are requested to come for round-table talks to solve their plight.

The developer, Esso Highlands in a statement yesterday confirmed that a camp operated by pipeline EPC contractor, Spiecapag, had its perimeter breached at around 9pm by a group of people from the local area.

Esso Highlands media and communications adviser Rebecca Arnold said: "A number of vehicles were vandalised and equipment was stolen. An adjacent camp operated by landowner company GFE was also breached and remains occupied by members of the group".

"There have been no reports of injuries. The police and other appropriate authorities remain on site," she stated. DPE official travelled to Gobe last week and interfaced with the group in an attempt to resolve the situation. They (DPE) returned yesterday, she confirmed.

Ms Arnold said the primary issue regarding the occupation appears to be Government commitments related to oil project Memorandums of Understanding (MoU's).

"Safety and security is a core value of Esso Highlands Limited  and we are committed to providing a safe workplace," she added.

Oil Search Limited general manager Mr Andrew Warrington said: "We fully support their continued provision of services to us despite the progressively and rapidly declining oil production at Gobe Main and South East Gobe.

Up until end September 2011 Oil Search had provided contract work during the year as follows: Gobe Field Engineering, civil work, camp maintenance and security work to the value of PNGK4.96MM Gobe Freight Services road transport and in-field cartage work to the value of PNGK8.31MM Gobe Catering - catering and camp management services to the value of PNGK2.87MM.

This data is published regularly by Oil Search in their bi-monthly Komuniti Nius. "These figures are revenue, not profit," he clarified.

Comments from DPE were not available to clarify the Government position, despite numerous calls yesterday afternoon.

However, Prime Minister Mr Peter O'Neill publically announced on Tuesday this week that all matters relating to outstanding commitments in Hela would be properly addressed shortly after all appropriate landowner groups were identified adequately.

A Touching Post from Tingtingblokantri Blog

The Bone Dagger

http://www.tingtingblokantri.blogspot.com/2011/12/bone-dagger.html 

Simon, a leader of his clan,  is an elderly man who has no use for shoes and the clothes that the white man brought in more than 50 years ago.  This proud Hela elder is one of hundreds whose world revolved around traditional symbols of wealth and status.But all that is being torn to shreds as the whiteman's cash takes precedence over headresses, bird plumes and pigs.  The whiteman's law has also rendered centuries old  traditional commandments  unapplicable in the 21st century.

These days Simon refuses to leave the confines of his village and venture into the Tari township -the capital of the new Hela province. His whole world - the world of the Hela man - is slowly crumbling around him.

For laws enforced to the letter by armed police dictate that he abandon his cassowary bone dagger that a Hela  man always  carries after initiation. The whitemen from gas project are fearful of the Hela with their strange headresses and their "offensive weapons," -the cassowary bone daggers. Police tell him that he can wear everything else but the bone dagger. Some of his tribesman have chosen. To wear shorts and trousers to avoid hassles with the police but not Simon. He doesn't care much about Exxon Mobil's multibillion dollar gas project but what worries him are ancient prophecies of strife and turmoil that will befall his people if the land is disturbed and the "fire" given to the outsider.

What also worries him is that his land is being invaded and trampled on  by foreigners and he is unable to defend it

Population Growth and Conflict in PNG: A Warning

See below, an interesting report on PNG’s population growth and the problems it creates. This dilemma is particularly important in areas facing natural resource developments. Indeed, one of the primary causes of the Bougainville conflict was a population bottleneck. A large generation of young people, who gained maturity in the 1980s, found core economic opportunities had been monopolized by previous generations. As a result they searched for new ways of organising their local political economy, one that would see a fairer redistribution of resources.

As we know this led to a bloody civil war, as neither local businessman or BCL would consent to the demands of the young people. We wonder then with all the new gas and mineral projects, whether 10 to 20 years from now we will see another Bougainville bottleneck. Of course by then Exxon will have pocketed the profits and the tax revenues will have lined the coffers of the corrupt elite, thus it will be left to the grassroots people, the PNGDF, the RPNGC and civil society to somehow resolve.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Population growth fuels conflict

IRIN – A Service of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

GOROKA, 21 December 2011  - Unchecked population growth is fast proving an additional source of conflict in Papua New Guinea (PNG), a country with a history of clan violence and clashes over land, experts say. 

“Without doubt, rapid population growth is adding to the risk of conflict,” Max Kep, director of the PNG’s national Office of Urbanization, told IRIN, noting that various types of conflict are fuelled by limited resources, including a shortage of land. 

As PNG’s population nears seven million, comprised of nearly 700 ethnic groups speaking some 800 languages, communities are increasingly fighting over smaller plots of land, while city dwellers in swelling urban areas are clashing with nearby owners of traditional land, Kep said. 

Over the past 30 years, the country’s population has more than tripled, from 2.1 million to 6.7 million, government figures reveal. 

At the same time, the average total fertility rate of 4.4 births per woman remains one of the highest in the Pacific region, says the UN. 

According to a recent government task force report on maternal health, PNG’s population will probably double in the next 25 years. 

Pressure on towns 

Adding to this challenge is PNG’s increasing youth population, with more than half of the country’s population now under the age of 20, according to World Bank figures.  

“It’s like having wild grass lying around waiting to be struck by lightning for a brushfire,” Helen Ware, a professor at the University of New England in Australia who has studied and practised peace-building in PNG, explained, noting the risk of so many idle, underemployed men. 

Migrants - drawn to towns and cities for jobs and services - are fuelling population growth in urban areas, Kep said, adding that urban areas are now growing at an average of 4.5-5 percent a year. 

Some 97 percent of the country’s land is under customary tenure law, meaning it is reserved for traditional land owners and the state has no jurisdiction over it. Land owners often are unwilling to release land for urban growth, so PNG’s cities have nowhere to expand, according to the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). 

The Eastern Highlands city of Goroka, for example, is facing critical land shortages which have caused rapid and informal urbanization, according to a UN-HABITAT report. 

Kep, with the Office of Urbanization, said a government initiative to encourage landowners to lease their land to municipalities is aimed at empowering them, with increased income and access to government services. 

Many of those flocking to urban areas today are the young. But with few job opportunities when they arrive, the country has also witnessed an increase in urban youth gangs, known as `raskol’ gangs, who often turn to crime, according to residents. 

Violent clashes have erupted between local landowners and `raskols’, Albert Sams, a 24-year-old health worker from Ifiufa, a village 20km from Goroka, explained. 

Family, community feuds 

Significantly, land disputes between family members and communities are also now more common under the strain of population growth, residents and international agencies say. 

“Villages which once were separated are now bordering one another, and conflicts are definitely arising through competition for resources,” said Chris Turner, from Marie Stopes International, an NGO providing family planning and reproductive services in PNG. 

In fact, in and around Goroka, fighting between families is also turning violent. 

“There are a lot of land disputes between families - some verbal abuse, and sometimes they fight with knives, sticks, stones or guns,” Sams said. 

Jeffery Korowa’s story is typical of large families struggling to live off the land. Hailing from a family of five siblings, the 49-year-old says all his brothers and sisters have had several children, leading to more than 15 offspring arguing over smaller and smaller pieces of property. 

“I’m already fighting with my brothers over land,” said Korowa, a nurse who owns land outside Mount Hagen, the provincial capital of West Highlands Province. “I can take my brothers to court. But I’m pretty sure if it comes to push and shove, it will become violent.” 

Furthers Reports on PNG's Resource Curse

Last Monday LNG WATCH PNG brought to light a recent study by Oxford Policy Management - this study has now been reported on The National.

PNG ‘resource curse’ site

Yehiura Hriehwazi, The National, Wednesday 21st December 2011

PAPUA New Guinea has been identified as among 20 countries in the world that is “most vulnerable” to fall under the “resources curse”.

Countries whose mineral and oil/gas exports account for 25% of their total exports were likely to become victims of the resources curse.

In PNG’s case, mineral, oil and gas account for over 60% of export revenue.

A study carried out by Oxford Policy Management (OPM) of mineral dependent countries – believed to be the first of its kind – found more than 20 low and middle-income countries “have become dangerously dependent on the exports of minerals such as metals and hydrocarbons, leaving the countries highly-vulnerable to a global economic downturn”.

About 75% of all mineral-dependent countries were now low-and middle-income countries, while the number classed as mineral-dependent has increased by 33% since 1996 from 46 to 61 nations, according to the OPM report, “Blessing or curse? The rise of mineral dependence among low- and middle-income countries.”

The study attempted to assess the vulnerability of resource-dependent nations on the so-called resource curse, characterised by weak economic and institutional development.

Six types of minerals were considered, including crude fertilisers, metalliferous ores (ores containing metals) and metal scrap, non-ferrous metals, pearls and semi-precious stones, non-monetary gold, and minerals fuels including natural gas.

The report developed an overall measure of institutional strength of a country by combining the World Bank’s six World Governance Indicators (WGI) with two indices: an economic and institutional development index, and a mineral dependence index.

The World Bank WGI includes voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption.

Mineral-dependent countries were defined as countries which rely on minerals for at least 25% of their tangible exports.

“Excluding Botswana and Chile – both of which have well-established and long-running mining sectors – the average annual GDP per capita of the top-20, non-fuel, mineral-dependent countries was US$3,200 in 2009,” the study said.

The mineral-dependent nations with the lowest GDP per capita included the Democratic Republic of Congo (US$319), Sierra Leone (US$808) and Mozambique (US$885).

The most dramatic changes in the number of mineral-dependent companies occurred from 2005 to 2010, when commodity prices started to soar.

During this period, eight additional nations became dependent on non-fuel minerals: Montenegro, Guyana, Laos, Burkina Faso, Bolivia, Georgia, Somalia and Ghana. Only one country became dependent on fuel-based minerals during the same period: Belize.

In their research, Oxford Policy Management found “a significant negative correlation between overall institutional development and both non-fuel and fuel-dependence.

“This finding is consistent with evidence that there are many fuel-dependent countries with high levels of GDP per capita but with persistent weaknesses of democratic governance and state accountability, such as Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Russia,”

Dan Haglund,  a political economist focused on natural resources policy, generated two matrices which defined countries most at risk from the “resource curse” due to critical reliance on minerals exports for foreign exchange earnings and therefore most vulnerable to international commodity markets.

“They are also the most severely constrained in terms of economic resources and effective institutions,” he observed.

“These countries have limited industrial diversification that would enable either ‘upstream’ supply industries to develop or ‘downstream’ value addition.”

The matrices identified the non-fuel, mineral-dependent countries most at risk were Bolivia, Burkina Faso, the DRC, Ghana, Guyana, Laos, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and Zambia.

LNG Site Threatened

LNG Site Threatened

Post-Courier, Monday, 19 December, 2011, p.6

IN the midst of the ongoing political tussle, another storm is slowly brewing as the gateway to the country's multi billion kina LNG project site has been under siege since Thursday last week.

At least 16,000 landowners from the surrounding villagers of the Gobe field engineering site in the Southern Highlands stormed the site demanding that the Government meet their demands of the past 20 years or face its definite closure.

Gobe is the LNG pipeline gateway into the Gulf Province from Kutubu, Moran and Hides but landowners have said that the current impasse has done very little to appease the build up of tensions as a large number of ExxonMobil employees have been forcefully evacuated, leaving a skeleton' number of staff behind who will eventually be told to leave.

A handful of landowner representatives made up of various ILG Chairman who are currently in Port Moresby, told the media last Friday that it was high time the two factions resolved their issues and agreed on one elected leader to sit with them and discuss these issues or the site would be closed forever.

The landowners, who come from the six surrounding villages, made up of 14 Incorporated Landowner Groups, presented their petition to the Government on the same day they seized the site. "Gobe is the gateway to the outside world and the State needs to consider this," said the Chairman of the Petroleum Development Licence 4, Jerome Kairi.

He criticised the Government for the political tussle that has lasted for the entire week.

He also said that discussions should also include officials from Oil Search, Esso Highlands and the Secretary for Environment and Conservation.

Papua New Guinea "Especially Vulnerable" to the Resource Curse

A recent report produced by Oxford Policy Management’s Extractive Industries team, suggests Papua New Guinea is “especially vulnerable” to the resource curse, as a result of growing dependence on minerals.

The report claims mineral dependence negatively impacts on economic growth, “non-fuel, mineral dependent countries are more likely to have lower economic development than other countries”.

It also argues: “Countries that depend on either non-fuel or fuel minerals are also more likely than other countries to suffer from institutional governance problems such as corruption and political instability”.

However, perhaps most disconcerting from Papua New Guinea’s perspective is the following finding: “More than 20 mineral-dependent countries are especially vulnerable to the ‘resource curse’ – the risk that substantial changes in commodity prices will severely affect their development. Non-fuel, mineral-dependent countries that are most at risk of the resource curse include: Bolivia, Burkino Faso, the DRC, Ghana, Guyana, Laos, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and Zambia".

Hopefully this report will be picked up and scrutinised by those in the mass-media and government who are at the forefront of the mining = development brigade - however, given that it raises uncomfortable facts which question this assumption, its findings might be tactically avoided. 

http://www.opml.co.uk/sites/opml/files/OPM%20Blessing%20or%20curse.pdf