theangle.org

LNG Plant, Papua New Guinea. Credit: Damian Baker

By Damian Baker:

The Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project is the biggest of its type in the history of PNG. Oil was found in the southern highlands 20 years ago but gas has emerged as the energy hope for the future.

An Australian company, Oil Search, is in the process of developing its gas resources which stretch over two provinces, 1,800 square kilometres, 13 language groups, hundreds of clans and more than 25,000 people in 110 villages. It presently has interests in, and operates, all of Papua New Guinea’s active oil fields.

The LNG project has captured the imagination of the nation.

Many landowners, villagers, local government officials and indeed the National government itself, have high hopes of a secure financial future based on the LNG project. The national 2010 budget bought down on November 17 in Port Moresby states clearly that it would rely heavily on the LNG income to balance the books in the increasingly fragile economy.

The scale of the project, the area the pipelines will traverse and the volatile behaviour of the landowners in PNG will all work against Oil Search and its partners as they begin this ambitious project.

Airport Seige

Last week in Moro, the centre of operations for the project, I filmed as the airport was closed and locals besieged government officials behind heavy metal gates topped with razor wire in an effort to be flown to Port Moresby to take part in negotiations they fear from which they fear they are  being excluded.

Moro itself has the feel of a citadel under attack; high security fences, razor wire, dogs and guns protect the oil facilities and airport. The local people have arrived en masse in the hope of accessing the many deals involving royalties, land compensation, equity dividends, scholarships, donations and grants.

Airport Standoff. Credit: Damian Baker

They pass through a series of security checks to congregate around the airport.

PNG has a history of miraculous benefits arriving from the sky; firstly missionaries arrived distributing food and faith and education in the villages. This was followed by the troops of World War 2 as their aircraft disgorged  unimaginable wealth, into villages not previously exposed to western society.

Cargo is a term used to explain big wealth gained quickly without work in PNG.

The promises of wealth from company executives flown into communities for negotiations seem to be the latest version of Cargo in PNG. Promise of riches without work are once again proving impossible to pass up for a people living in poor subsistence farming communities.

Fortunes are being made and often spent in Port Moresby just as quickly as savvy leaders and scammers jump to attention and grab the early gains.

Tensions are high in PNG with executives connected to the deal being assaulted in Port Moresby. Others were barricaded into work compounds in the Gulf area, and a government official was kidnapped and bashed as tempers are lost and frustrations vented by PNG people who fear being cheated.

In the rush to get to what many believe is rightly theirs, deals are being cut by anyone with rights, potential or any kind of leverage in the agreements needed to make the project a success. It took over two weeks and cost K10 million for the Government and landowner representatives to reach an agreement on the Benefits Sharing Agreement in Kokopo earlier this year with the highlands equivalent meeting due to start this week in Moro.

The past does not provide much reason for hope, after travelling PNG’s mining areas for a month it is difficult to see any positive impact of past resource booms on PNG’s crumbling infrastructure.

The huge monies doled out in the past seem to have disappeared into huge potholes in provincial roads or washed down the sometimes non-existent sewer systems and drains of the larger towns.

Port Moresby itself – while not exactly the shining glass and steel monument to capitalism it could be – is claimed by many villages I have met to be to be the beneficiary of the past gold copper and oil wealth.

Data analysed by Dr Charles Yala in an article in the National newspaper suggested that the average Papua New Guinean was much poorer in 2006 than in 1960. In villages surrounding the oil boomtown of Moro, infants suffer malnutrition at rates of up to 60% according to local heath workers.

The stark imagery of children’s distended bellies leaves a lasting impression from one of the most beautiful areas in the country and others I have spoken to have fears that, once again the bounties of Cargo will not arrive for the PNG villagers queuing behind the barbed wire.

By Damian Baker: Interested in writing on this or another category for theangle.org? Contact us via our online form.