Monday, May 25, 2009

ExxonMobil secures PNG gas for $9.5bn, eyes Chinese custom

Port Moresby: Papua New Guinean landowners across the sites where the ExxonMobil-led Liquefied Natural Gas project will be built have signed a crucial multi-billion dollar benefit sharing agreement.

After five weeks of intense talks with up to 1000 resource owners, relevant provincial governments and PNG's national government agreed to a 20 billion kina ($9.5 billion) deal over the 30-year life span of the LNG project. The signing secured landowners and provincial government seven per cent equity in the multi-billion dollar project. That figure comes from PNG government's 19.4 per cent equity in the project that Exxon Mobil estimates will double the country's gross domestic product through taxes and gas sales.Southern Highlands Governor Anderson Agiru was one of the key negotiators with PNG's cabinet ministers.

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