Japan largest purchaser of PNG natural gas

Posted on The National

SINCE 2017, Japan remains the largest purchaser of natural gas from Papua New Guinea, importing 4.2 million tonnes, followed by China (2.1 million tonnes), according to a World Bank report.
Taiwan, China, is the most dependent on gas from PNG, with 10.4 per cent (1.9 million tonnes) of its LNG imports coming from the country; in China the number is 6.1 per cent, and 5.1 per cent for Japan.
World Bank PNG released its report it Port Moresby last week, Papua New Guinea Economic Update: Recovery Amid Uncertainty.
With liquefied natural gas (LNG) production accounting for about 13 per cent of GDP and nearly 40 per cent of merchandise exports, LNG is now a firmly-established feature of PNG’s economy.
“Papua New Guinea is still a minor producer by global standards. Its 8.2 million tonnes of LNG exports is dwarfed by the 81 million tonnes exported annually by Qatar, the world’s largest LNG exporter,” the report stated.
“In the Asia-Pacific region, PNG ranks fourth behind Australia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. However, if the new Papua LNG project and the PNG LNG expansion (P’nyang) deliver the promised eight million tons of extra capacity, PNG will potentially move closer to Indonesia.”
The report said rising demand for PNG’s main commodity export, LNG, gave cause for optimism.
Moves to improve air quality in Chinese cities, coupled with China’s continued economic expansion, were driving steady increases in Chinese demand for natural gas.
With domestic Chinese supply unable to keep pace with demand, LNG imports are rising rapidly and exceeded 50 million tonnes per year in 2018 (more than five times Papua New Guinea’s total annual LNG production).
Japan, the world’s largest importer of LNG, took steps in 2011 to reduce the use of nuclear power and saw an increase in LNG imports which had proved sustainable in recent years but was likely to decline as its nuclear plants come back on-line.
Demand for LNG in Taiwan – PNG’s third largest LNG trade partner – rose by an average of five per cent per year from 2012-18, supporting the outlook of growing regional demand over the medium term.

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/japan-largest-purchaser-of-png-natural-gas/

Move for talks on petroleum, mining legislation welcomed

Posted on The National

THE government’s move to open more discussions on the review of petroleum and mining legislations has been welcomed.
The Institute of National Affairs (INA) director Paul Barker, pictured, made this comment following Petroleum Minister Kerenga Kua’s call for more discussions on how to improve revenue streams in the sector.
Kua told The National last week that said he would set up a team and with Cabinet’s endorsement, to create discussion and dialogue on the laws surrounding the petroleum with the aim to improve the revenue position of the country.
Barker said it was a sensible approach to bring together different groups to talk about the interests of this multi-billion kina sector.
“To raise the level of awareness, transparency over the industry and that is what the process is like, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative is for,” he said.
“It (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s) reduces the level of suspicion, which comes when you have lots of secrets or lack of information or where some players are better informed than others.
“When all the players have a better understanding, it reduces suspicion, people then can start working more in collaboration together and actually it provides a more stable environment at the end of the day for the investors as well.”
He said this process would create more transparency.
Kua said once consultation and dialogue was competed, he aimed to have new petroleum legislation tabled in Parliament by the end of next year.

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/move-for-talks-on-petroleum-mining-legislation-welcomed/

PM returns from Australia: This is the start of a new relationship

Posted on The National

PRIME Minister James Marape has described his first official state visit to Australia as a successful one.
Marape, who arrived from Australia yesterday afternoon, said the people and the government of Australia received the PNG state delegation well.
He said PNG and Australia shared a border and a shared history.
He said with the dormant policy of “Friends to all – enemy to none”, Australia remained PNG’s closest friends and number one bilateral partner in terms of government to government and people to people exchanges.
Marape said in that regard, Prime Minister Scott Morrison invited him to visit Australia.
He said the gesture was the start of a new relationship that was expected to see the way minister to minister exchanges and those among government officials.
He said those meetings would elevate relations between the countries in the 21st Century to an improved state across a wide range of areas particularly, trade.
He said there was a trade imbalance between the two countries with Australia extracting more benefits than PNG.
That fact was discussed during the visit with the aim to have a comprehensive strategic economic partnership.
Marape said the framework entailed how the two economies could work together to address and allow for free trade including, labour mobility.
He said in terms of labour mobility, instead of sessional fruit picking, they had discussed how Australia could look at investing in the technical vocation education to equip people to participate in skills schemes.
Marape said he and Morrison had several discussions based on key achievable outcomes.
He said their meeting would set the basis for the minister to minister meeting to be hosted in Aug this year.
He said the Manus detention centre and asylum seekers and the naval base was among the issues discussed with Manus Governor Charlie Benjamin.
The discussions also involved making travel easier between the two countries.

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/pm-returns-from-australia-this-is-the-start-of-a-new-relationship/

Governments we deserve, but not Governments we need

By CHRIS OVERLAND - PNG Attitude

ADELAIDE – Strangely, while politicians as a class are seriously on the nose across the democratic world, individual politicians appear to remain popular within their own electorates, even if they clearly are not people of the highest moral or ethical character.

The former Australian deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce immediately springs to mind as an example of this.

Papua New Guinea has all too many examples of ethically-compromised politicians who remain very popular in their electorates. It must be the beer and lamb flaps effect at work.

More pragmatically, I put this phenomenon down to the fact that politicians, in their day to day work, spend a lot of time helping ordinary people navigate the labyrinthine byways of the government bureaucracy, thus building a reservoir of goodwill that they can draw upon when elections come around.

This is called "farming the electorate" and a good "farmer" can often survive adverse changes of electoral fortune in a way that defies all expectations.

Thus the current Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, who in the recent federal election ran an outstandingly disciplined but blatantly populist election campaign, triumphed over an opposition saddled with an unpopular leader who could not successfully sell a complex array of mostly sensible and carefully crafted policies.

This points to the ultimate source of the problem, which is the painful fact that many of our fellow citizens have great trouble distinguishing between what is objectively true and what is merely blarney, blatherskite and bullshit.

Theoretically, universal education is supposed to be the antidote to this affliction but, sadly, this is manifestly not the case. Many people apparently survive their years of schooling without ever developing a capacity for effective critical thinking.

They are, as a result, unduly credulous and deeply susceptible to things like the pseudo-science used to justify things like the anti-vaccination movement or a whole range of dietary fads or the consumption of vast quantities of essentially useless vitamins, mineral supplements and so forth.

They are also easily conned when it comes to complex issues like how the economy actually works as distinct from how politicians might explain it.

There is much excellent and alarming research that indicates that there is a startling lack of financial literacy amongst the Australian population. No doubt the situation is similar or worse across the globe.

This collective ignorance and credulity is, I think, the heart of the problem with democratic politics.

It helps explain why a Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin or Recep Erdogan or Boris Johnson or Peter O'Neill can remain in power for so long.

Basically, the voting populations seem unable to grasp that what comes out of their political leaders' mouths often doesn't reflect reality. Very often it merely reflects self-interest or the interests of their powerful backers.

This is especially true where those politicians play to our prejudices and beliefs instead of our intellects.

Paradoxically, these same credulous voters will insist that they neither believe nor trust their political leaders.

I assume that there are several possible psycho-social explanations for what is a bizarre mismatch between this supposed distrust and the resultant observable electoral behaviour but I find it baffling in the extreme.

People are not being honest with themselves, let alone with others. Our capacity for self-deception seems to be infinite.

Anyway, for whatever reasons too many of us keep voting for the same disingenuous, deviousness and dishonesty that we purport to deplore.

Until this changes, we will continue to get the governments we deserve as distinct from those that we actually need.

Go to this link for more: https://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2019/07/governments-we-deserve-but-not-governments-we-need.html

Economic Powerhouse: Marape's Goal for PNG

Posted by The West Australian

Papua New Guinea is on a quest for economic independence, which could eventually save Australia billions of dollars in aid.

New PNG Prime Minister James Marape says he wants his nation to move away from an "donor-recipient" relationship with Australia.

"I don't envisage this type of aid donor recipient relationship to last, in fact within the next 10 years I want my country to grow into economic self-reliance and independence," Mr Marape said during a speech in Sydney on Thursday night.

PNG receives more than half a billion dollars in aid from Australia each year.

Mr Marape's speech comes days after Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced another $250 million in grants and low-interest loans to help PNG connect 70 per cent of its country to electricity by 2030.

The new PNG prime minister arrived in Australia on Sunday for a six-day visit after taking over from Peter O'Neill in May.

During Thursday's speech in Sydney, Mr Marape reiterated his pledge to make PNG the world's "richest black Christian nation".

"For too long we have allowed external forces to dictate the direction that we take, but this will now change," he said.

"We will move from an introduced culture of dependency and complacency, where we rely on overseas aid and inward investment alone, to one where we become a vibrant economic powerhouse and are totally economically independent."

Go to this link for more: https://thewest.com.au/politics/economic-powerhouse-marapes-goal-for-png-ng-s-1957718

Australia & climate change: ‘I won’t be silenced’ says Marape

By HELEN DAVIDSON | Guardian Australia | Extract

SYDNEY - Australia has a responsibility to protect the Pacific region from the impacts of climate change, PNG’s newly appointed prime minister has said.

James Marape told the Guardian that Australia had “a moral responsibility … to the upkeep of the planet”, particularly given the extreme effect it was having on smaller Pacific nations.

“I don’t intend to speak from Canberra’s perspective, they have their own policy mindset, but as human beings I know they will respond to the moral obligation that is prevalent amidst us, that we are environmentally sensitive to the needs of others.”

He said the voices of smaller island nations must be listened to.

“As big countries in the Pacific – Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand – we have a sense of responsibility to the smaller island countries, because displacement of these smaller communities will first and foremost be our neighbourhood responsibility,” Marape said.

In a wide-ranging interview, Marape outlined a vision for his country, to leave behind a history of wasted opportunities and squandered resources, and move towards a healthy and educated nation free of violence.

In May, after Scott Morrison led the Coalition to an election victory, Pacific leaders urged him to do more on climate change, saying Australia was “lagging behind”.

Marape, undertaking his first official visit to Australia last week, said he would “not be silenced” on environmental responsibility.

“We can have our resources but we must have it in an environmentally-friendly manner, so that we leave planet earth to the next generation not in the form we’ve inherited but a better form.

He said he believed Australia, New Zealand, and PNG should lead the Pacific as a “bloc” of nations reconstructing their economies to handle resource productions in a more environmentally and socially sensitive way.

On Thursday Marape warned foreign companies already in PNG that he intended to crack down on regulatory compliance, and also shake up revenue processing to ensure PNG drew at least 50% in taxes and royalties.

He also wanted to see a shift towards an agricultural exports economy, as a “food bowl for Asia” rather than the current dependence on mining.

“For the amount of wealth the lord has blessed us with ... the actual translation of this resource into improving peoples life hasn’t happened well in 44 years,” he told Guardian Australia.

“I don’t blame the past they lived at the time. They wrote the history, I’m going to write the future for our country.”

He said if his government didn’t get the balance right, future generations would blame them.

His comments followed an ambitious declaration on Thursday that the impoverished nation would be free of its dependence on Australian aid – more than half a billion dollars a year – within the decade.

He told Guardian Australia a prosperous PNG was a “win-win” for Australia.

“If we are independent economically, if we are solid and sustaining our own life, your taxes don’t need to come to us,” he said.

“We’ll keep the borders up north safe, we’ll have a better, friendly region up there, so the entire region is safe. If we disintegrate up there it affects Australia too.”

Go to this link for more: https://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2019/07/australia-climate-change-i-wont-be-silenced-says-marape.html

Hela elections hum along to the end

Posted on The National

LOCAL level government (LLG) elections in Hela proceeded well but, two ballot boxes were allegedly hijacked by intending candidates vying for council president seats for three districts.
Provincial returning officer and deputy election manager Anna Pame said it was trouble-free council elections across the 275 wards within 14 LLGs in Tari-Pori, Komo-Margarima and Koroba-Kopiago.
She said the ballot papers in the hijacked boxes were marked and later returned.
“These two ballot boxes were rejected and never counted,” Pame said.
Pame said the peaceful elections demonstrated the people’s appreciation for the electoral process despite violence in the province during the weeks leading up to the election.
Pame said she received no reports of threats, intimidations or coercion from her 14 assistant returning officers and from the voters since nominations started last month to the close on July 4.
“For LLGs without problems, the voting, counting and declarations were done on the same day.
“For wards that had problems, we mobilised additional polling officials to assist the people at a centralised LLG site to cast votes before counting,” Pame said.
She said 273 writs had been signed.
From a total 1,716 candidates, 21 were females with two of them winning their council seats.
Election steering committee chairman and deputy administrator for policy programme management Eddie Yuwi said despite recent fighting in Tagali, polling was conducted peacefully.
Hela government also ensured everyone was given a chance to vote by airlifting ballot boxes and election personnell to remote areas such as Mt Bosavi.

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/hela-elections-hum-along-to-the-end/

Pruaitch calls for sacking of KPHL board, management

Posted by The National

OPPOSITION Leader Patrick Pruaitch has called for the immediate sacking of the management and board of Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited (KPHL) for acting against national interest and refusing to cooperate with Permanent Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) hearings.
“The board and management of Kumul Petroleum are behaving as though they are a law unto themselves and this should not be tolerated,” Pruaitch said.
He claimed there were at least six national interest grounds to support the sacking of the KPHL board and management, among them:

• KPHL has made false and erroneous public statements and never reported satisfactorily to Parliament on its operational and financial status;
• In spite of its role as a state-owned enterprise, KPHL had adversely impacted the lives of Papua New Guineans by hiding massive foreign exchange revenues in a Singapore bank account;
• KPHL board and chief executive officer Wapu Sonk misled National Government Ministers and the public regarding its lack of support for the National Budget;
• Although Prime Minister James Marape has decreed that KPHL will report to, and come under the jurisdiction of the Minister for State Enterprises Sasindran Muthuvel, the company has failed to cooperate with the minister;
• No government in any country would tolerate the stance taken by KPHL as a state-owned enterprise that it was not answerable to the nation’s Parliament, or for that matter, the Public Accounts Committee; and
• It was ethically wrong for KPHL to divert its LNG revenues to a Singapore bank account and to borrow funds from PNG banks in order to pay government dividends and for working capital.

This has a highly detrimental impact on the PNG economy.
Pruaitch said among the misleading statements attributable to KPHL was a recent July 3 statement by chairman Andrew Baing.
The Opposition leader alleged that chairman Baing that said since 2014 KPHL “has delivered to the State over K4 billion in dividends, returns of capital, taxes and other strategic, social and community in the country.
“This represent 78 per cent of KPHL’s available cashflow.
“As former Treasurer from March 2014 to May 2017, I can testify that this claim is palpable nonsense,” he said. “In 2016, KPHL paid the Government K200 million which it claimed was an advance to Government.
“As I disclosed previously, corporate taxes paid by KPHL are far below payments listed in company annual reports, a difference of K500 million just for 2014 and 2015 alone.”
Pruaitch said that, in his statement, Baing promised that KPHL would present a full and comprehensive report on its financial affairs to Parliament in the first week of July. This never happened.
On that day, Marape told Parliament Muthuvel would submit a full report to Parliament on KPHL.

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/pruaitch-calls-for-sacking-of-kphl-board-management/