It was part of the Mineral Resources Authority’s investment promotion and marketing strategy to expose the country’s mineral potential and prospects to potential foreign investors.
Dubai is regarded as an important financial center for the raising of development capital, evidenced by the established presence of major banks and financial institutions from around the world.
The MRA set up a display booth at the conference with the support of the Raw Materials Group of Sweden.
The two-day conference covered a variety of subjects including the global economic scene, mining potential and managing investment risk.
The conference invited 37 speakers, including MRA manager special projects Philip Samar, who presented a country paper on the mining and exploration opportunities and prospects in PNG.
The other PNG participant at the conference was Regency Mines which has a tenement in Oro Province.
The MRA said a Brazilian diversified mining company has indicated its intention to send a delegation to PNG later this year to discuss the prospects of securing exploration tenements in the country.
Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil, Nippon Oil Corporation and Santos – three of the major partners – in the multi-billion kina liquefied natural gas project are to base all their workers including their chief executive officers in Papua New Guinea.
Two executives of the companies heavily involved in the LNG project said they were prepared to house their chief executive officers and other staff in the country and do away with the fly in-fly out arrangement used by current resource developers in PNG.
The executives of the top companies, led by giant Exxon Mobil, gave the assurance to the Post-Courier when they were in the country to sign the fiscal stability agreement with the state.
The signing of the FSA allows the project to enter into an agreement with the proponents of the project, which guarantees that the agreed tax rate will be applicable until 10.5 trillion cubic feet of gas was produced from the project after first cargo.
The executives, who asked not to be identified because of security reasons, said last week, they were prepared to live in the country once the LNG project kicks into full swing officially.
“We will have to fulfill the agreement that was signed in May 22, 2008 and one of the things our company had looked at was to seriously consider moving over to Port Moresby to live and work here,” vice president of one of the companies told the Post-Courier last week.
“Yes, we will consider that, but I cannot tell you when exactly we will move into PNG.”
Another company executive although receptive in his response also said that they were seriously looking at the issue and he was positive he would move into Port Moresby soon.
When asked if they were worried about the standard of living in PNG, if they were concerned about their personal security and that of their families, one of the executives said: “PNG is not too bad, I guess it’s the bad stories that go around that frightens our families but yeah, I guess its schools, shops, doctors, these are the main things which are of concern to us.”
They both waved away the rising fees on accommodation alluding to it as “not a problem.”
The Post-Courier understands from mining experts and Government Ministers that the issue of fly-in-fly out was one issue among the Benefit Sharing Agreement and the others that the Government seriously needed to address.
Experts have advised that the Government and PNG would lose out on millions of kina if the fly-in-fly out issue was not successfully negotiated and if company heads and their foreign staff agree to live and work from their countries of origin or from Australia.
The experts have advised the Government that there was no use for the LNG project to go ahead if the companies were going to run a remote control operation. But if they agreed to live and work in PNG this would be a major boost for the country’s economy.
This also comes after several discussions and meetings the National Government has been holding on the topic of fly-in-fly out arrangement with the developers of the LNG project.
In Parliament last month, Mendi MP Isaac Joseph asked Petroleum Minister William Duma to explain whether global giant Exxon Mobil and the other joint venture companies will accommodate their executives in PNG.
Duma said the Government was still negotiating the issue but the companies involved in the project had indicated that they would be moving to Port Moresby once the project started operations.
