A multi-billion US dollar deal has been signed between Papua New Guinea landowners and ExxonMobil for a Liquefied Natural Gas project.
After five weeks of talks with up to 1,000 resource owners, relevant provincial governments and PNG's national government agreed to a seven billion US dollar deal over the 30-year life span of the LNG project.
The weekend's signing session in Kokopo, in PNG's East New Britain province, has secured landowners and provincial government seven per cent equity in the project.
That figure comes from PNG government's 19.4 per cent equity in the project that ExxonMobil estimates will double the country's gross domestic product through taxes and gas sales.
The Southern Highlands Governor Anderson Agiru has told the newspaper, The National, that they had cut a good deal.
A highway will be built parallel to the pipeline that will pump gas from the Southern Highlands to the coast for shipping and then processing in Port Moresby.