Account opening exercise for Pipeline begins

Per the advice of the Department of Petroleum and Energy, MRDC is now in the process of rolling out its program starting in segment 7 (Gulf/SHP Border) from Friday, November 2^nd .

Segment 7 has the longest length of Pipeline running through it, covering 37 clans who together hold a 44 per cent interest.

This process will see that the landowners of the pipeline start to receive their royalty and equity payment from the PNGLNG Project.

The exercise will be carried out with the support of the Department of Petroleum and Energy, Exxon Mobil PNG, Oil Search, Bank South Pacific and the Electoral Commission of Papua New Guinea and will be rolled out in three phases over three weeks starting with an awareness program, then bank account opening and the election of landowner directors to the company representing pipeline landowners, Gas Resources PNGLNG Pipeline limited to follow in the third week.

MRDC has conducted several alignment meetings with key stakeholders including, Department of Petroleum, Oil Search, ExxonMobil PNG, and Kumul Petroleum to understand the issues and to plan the Account Opening exercise.

MRDC Managing Director, Augustine Mano said “We have completed the assessment of issues and my officers are now on the ground in Kikori to commence this exercise”

He said per the Oil and Gas Act, any clans with disputes will be left out of this exercise.

“All those clans who currently have court orders will not be part of the exercise. We will skip those clans and move only to those segments that are ready.

Mr Mano said there were two important parts to this exercise, the opening of bank Accounts and the election of directors to the board.

“All beneficiaries will be part of this open and transparent process in their communities. I urge all clan Chairmen’s to align themselves within their segment this week before the second and third phase begins. This way there will be no further delays in allowing our process to continue in order for benefits to flow” said Mano.

The awareness program will allow for beneficiaries to be informed of how accounts will be set, and how directors will be voted to the Gas Company representing them.

MRDC will then proceed to facilitating the opening BSP bank accounts for segment 7 from the 10th of November.

The bank accounts will allow all clans to receive their benefits from the PNGLNG project with ease from BSP banks set up by MRDC in Kikori.

In the third week, MRDC through the ECPNG will conduct the election of directors. Only Chairman’s of registered clans will be eligible for nomination and voting.

MRDC will advise which other segments will follow after the completion of segment 7 by mid-November.

A total of 144 beneficiary clans along the pipeline corridor and without disputes listed below will go through this exercise before the end of the year.

MRDC will not provide logistics support to any landowner groups in these segments and is calling on beneficiaries from the segments without disputes to make their own way to the ground.

Segment 8 in Kiddo village, Central province has already completed this process together with the PNGLNG Plant site (PPFL2) beneficiary clans in 2017. They have their accounts set up and are ready to receive their benefits.

MRDC has successfully carried out this account opening and election exercise in the PNGLNG Plant site (PPFL2) and Ok Tedi Mine landowners, in line with its New Trust Deed Arrangements.