Villagers in PNG protest overdue LNG royalty payments

4:33 pm on 20 February 2017

More than 1000 villagers from a Liquified Natural Gas project site near the Papua New Guinea capital Port Moresby have gathered to protest about their overdue royalty payments.

LNG Project facility, Hela Province, Papua New Guinea

LNG Project facility, Hela Province, Papua New Guinea Photo: RNZI / Johnny Blades

PNG Loop reported the villagers, from an area known as Portion 152, said that despite government promises, they had not received a royalty payment since the first shipment of gas in 2014.

A village spokesperson, Judah Matt Baru, said they had been promised time and again by the government that royalties would be paid, but it had not happened.

He said the villagers were threatening to shut down the plant site on their land if they were not paid.

The people of Project 152 are not the only ones who have not been paid their dues with several other land-owning groups across the country having also protested at the non-payment of royalties by the government.

The multi-billion dollar project was hoped to be of huge economic benefit to PNG, but its income has been hard hit by plummeting global commodity prices.

Get the RNZ app

for ad-free news and current affairs