The PNG National Party will amend the Mining and Petroleum Act to benefit the country if it is a member of the coalition government after the National Elections in June.
This was the statement by the party parliamentary leader, Kerenga Kua, when addressing their convention on Friday.
Kua said the country is losing out on billions of Kina annually because of the current law governing the mining and petroleum industry.
“Economy of the country is underpinned by petroleum and mining,” he said.
“The current law states that the State owns all the resources under the ground, so investors, when they come, ask for petroleum licence.
“The first licence they get is an exploration licence, they do the exploration but the ownership still remains with the State.
“When they make a commercial discovery, then they (investors) come to the government and ask for a development licence, and when government gives them the licence, the ownership of those resources which was owned by the State is now transferred 100 percent to the developer, free of charge.
“That is where the entire problem had been for all those years.
“The same law states that, once the licence and ownership is in the hands of the developer – in petroleum the state has to buy the 22.5 percent share from the developer and same with the mineral industry.
“We must stop that to have a radical change.
“We will introduce a law and system known as Productive Sharing and Equity Scheme. It means for petroleum, our share will be given at the well head. There will be a valve there that will measure the flow.
“For minerals, we will get our shares after the gold and copper are refined after cost of production is taken into account,” Kua said.
He added that this is a common practice internationally.