04-01-2013, 09:10 AM
O'Neill has been unwinding Petromin's authority as State's Nominee since elected last August. We will never hear the details and we hear of developments weeks/months after they occur. DPE has history of being mis-managed and unavailable and was blamed to cost XOM an additional billion $ in PNG LNG through their incompetence. Petromin may survive as absorbed into NPCP and who knows, Petromin leaders may survive as well. Duma did after-all. Apparently he was re-aligned by O'Neill.
It would seem NEC could be bought then for $100 million. Maybe that $ is what had the short's back. Doubtful today at this point.
PROJECT ZEBRA:
..."The move will also distance the government from the stigma of a potentially corrupt inducement money totaling $US100 million promised by a multi-national company to shaft the second LNG developer.........The $US100 million offer is payable after dilution of Interoil's project equity, cancellations of Interoil's project agreement with the State signed in December, 2009 and the company's present PRL-15 over Elk/Antelope and dispossession of its exploration acres in Gulf Province.
The offer was made in writing April 21 (2011) this year by Shell Exploration Company BV to investment bankers - Lazard Freres based in Paris and to New York based Ambata Capital Partners - who were appointed by Petromin PNG Holdings Limited to act for them.........Petromin - through Petroleum and Energy Minister William Duma and his department - has been actively lobbying to have Shell Exploration Company BV imposed on Interoil as operator of the Gulf LNG Project. Interoil does not accept the deal...........Petromin has schemed "Project Zebra" under which it has mounted a hostile takeover or dilution bid of Interoil' LNG project equity position as a condition of Shell's engagement as Gulf LNG project operator.
The scheme was hatched by Petromin in March this year (2011) which Petromin maintains was purportedly at the direction o displaced Prime Minister Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare and Minister Duma.
Persons close to the former Prime Minister say Sir Michael was never consulted by Petromin for authorization to seek an operator for Interoil's LNG project.
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Michael Somare in surgery for heart illness
BY:ROWAN CALLICK, ASIA-PACIFIC EDITOR From: The Australian April 12, 2011 12:00AM
PAPUA New Guinea's 75-year-old Prime Minister, Michael Somare, is seriously ill, undergoing surgery in Singapore for what is understood to be a longstanding heart condition.
His family has flown to his bedside, as have PNG Chief Secretary Joshua Kalinoe and other close colleagues. His son Sana works in Singapore.
Sir Michael and his family are Catholics, and they asked congregations to pray at masses on Sunday for the veteran politician, known as "the Chief" and seen as the nation's founding father. He has been in parliament 42 years.
Sir Michael collapsed during a recent court hearing when he was convicted of failing to file annual returns on his assets and business transactions, and suspended from office for two weeks to April 18. (2011)
He took puffs from an inhaler, and resumed his attendance. But he failed to fly to Fiji for the Melanesian Spearhead Group summit 12 days ago, and went to Singapore for medical checks.
It has been unclear whether he would lead his National Alliance Party into the election due mid-next year, after an unprecedented 10 years in power. The state of his health now makes that unlikely.
It had been assumed he would prefer his son Arthur, the Public Enterprise Minister, to succeed him, but the powerful Highlands bloc of MPs would oppose that. Highlander Sam Abal is now Acting Prime Minister.
If Sir Michael were to retire because of ill-health, it would cause an unpredictable parliamentary election. The new prime minister would then hold power for just over a year.
But PNG would be entering uncharted political waters just as the prize is greatest. Billions of dollars of international investment is under way for a liquefied natural gas pipeline and plant, and for massive new mines.