Photo credit: PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum
The mining and petroleum industries' continued drop in exploratory activity is a source of concern for the industry.
Exploration activity has been declining and falling since 2019, with no obvious signs of recovery, although the sector remains confident that this will soon reverse.
In his opening remarks at the 2021 Mining and Petroleum Conference yesterday in Brisbane, Australia, PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum president Anthony Smare highlighted the industry's worry about the downturn in exploration activities.
In the previous two years, he added, existing world-class projects in the country have had to contend with COVID-19-related risks or compete with high society expectations of increased benefit flows to the national government and local and regional communities.
Despite the strong performance of these projects, he expressed concern about the ongoing collapse of the country's exploration activity.
“There is considerable uncertainty at present because of ongoing concerns regarding the policy climate generally and the potential impacts of COVID-19 and climate change.
Some assurance on the part of the government of a more stable regulatory and fiscal regime can hopefully lead to a renewal on investor’s interest in mining and petroleum activities,” he said.
Mr Smare stated that there has been worry about the shifting policy climate in PNG, which has resulted in the closure of the nation's second largest gold producer, Porgera Mine, as well as the stalling of other key resource projects due to different policy concerns.
He claimed the sector's export earnings declined by K6 billion last year after years of steady growth since the PNG LNG Project began exporting in 2014.
“According to reports by Bank of PNG, the petroleum and mining exports last year fell from K32.5 billion in 2019 to K25.8billion as a result of a fall in LNG prices and the shutdown of Porgera Mine in April 2020,” Mr Smare said.
He went on to say that the chamber has been holding webinars for the past year to discuss changing government policies, and that these webinars have complemented the ongoing resource sector activities that focus on areas like community affairs and safety, where PNG projects have been comparable in performance to aid development cooperation.
Reference: Kamus, Maxine. Post-Courier (2 December 2021). “Exploration Activities In Downward Trend”.
