Petroleum Minister Fabian Pok says the Petroleum Authority Bill and Oil & Gas Act Review will complement each other.
Minster Pok said the Bill and the Act review will soon be brought to the National Executive Council for endorsement.
The Petroleum Authority Bill and Oil & Gas Act Review aim to improve business around future oil and gas development projects so PNG can receive the maximum benefit.
One such area the Bill and Act review aims to improve is to ensure social mapping and landowner identification is done.
Acting Secretary of the Department of Petroleum & Energy, Kepsie Puiye, said Section 47 of oil and gas act directs the project developers to undertake full scale social mapping and landowner identification studies.
So for the PNG LNG Project, the state has not adequately enforced the application of Section 47 of the oil and gas act and unfortunately, there were no penalties under the regime.
“Unfortunately the act does not contain or has any provision to penalise companies who do not undertake social mapping and landowner identification.
“This is one of the reasons why I emphasized to the minister, I highlighted the importance of amending the oil and gas act quickly,” said Puiye.
“We want to see improvements in the way we conduct business because we are talking about the resource in this country and we want to get the maximum benefit to develop this country,” he added.
Following the Ministerial Determination signing of all pipeline segments of the PNG LNG Project recently, Minister Pok said both the Bill and Act review will soon be brought to Cabinet.
“We are reviewing the (Oil & Gas) Act. Also in line with that is the setting up of the Petroleum Authority. The Bill is going to come before Cabinet and NEC.
“We will complete the review to amend the oil and gas act and Petroleum Authority and to make sure they complement each other and where there are areas that have not been covered, (they) will now be covered in the amendments to the act,” Pok said.
(Petroleum Minister Fabian Pok)