Papua New Guinea's government has agreed to stay committed to the Papua LNG Gas Agreement with French company Total.
Kerenga Kua, Papua new Guinea's Minister for Petroleum. Photo: Loop PNG
The Minister for Petroleum, Kerenga Kua, said cabinet has discussed a review of the agreement signed in May under the former prime minister Peter O'Neill.
Mr Kua said the new James Marape-led cabinet agreed in principle that the state should stand behind the agreement in the best interest of PNG.
But he said the state had reserved its rights to discuss a shortlist of matters with the developers of the $US13 billion Papua LNG gas project in Gulf Province.
According to Mr Kua, these matters won't affect the general economics and fiscal terms of the Agreement, and that discussing them shouldn't take longer than two weeks.
Mr Kua and Mr Marape had pushed for a review of the Papua LNG deal, as part of their concern to ensure fair benefits from this large resource extraction project for PNG and its people.
"We believe that what we have discussed and agreed to are favourable and will not affect the general economics and fiscal terms of the Papua LNG Gas Agreement," Mr Kua explained.
"However, those matters are of relevance to the State and this will be placed on the table for consideration by the joint venture partners.
"In view of the very limited agenda items identified for discussion the National Executive Council does not believe it will take more than two weeks to conclude."
Discussions continue today, he said.