This is on top of giving away billions of kina worth of concessions and exemptions in the Gas Agreement and agreeing to many demands by the project partners that are against the national interest.

Mr O’Neill and the project partners have a lot of explaining to do.

The Gas Agreement provides for a maximum 5% of gas from the project as a domestic market obligation (DMO). The natural gas and national energy policies both call for a DMO of 15%.

The national energy policy states that “with increased petroleum exploration being undertaken both onshore and offshore in the country’s major sedimentary basins there is now the possibility that more reserves of natural gas would be discovered in commercial quantities.

“The government will ensure 15% of gas reserves in new oil and gas projects is made available for domestic gas utilisation.”

Furthermore, the DMO gas commitment in the Gas Agreement is an option up to 5%, therefore it is possible PNG might not receive any DMO gas at all.

As well, the provision of DMO gas depends upon the state-owned Kumul group clearing its financing commitments relating to the project, so it could take many years before any gas is made available, if at all.

The Gas Agreement states that DMO gas will only be available for the generation of electricity, therefore preventing any use to promote the development of gas-related industries in the country.

There are also questions about the price of project gas for domestic use.

I have been advised by several officials that the agreed price of $US4.50 per million British Thermal Units is expensive.

One official told me, “It seems this price is indexed to the global market price, whereas the gas is to be used in PNG. Inevitably this high price will be passed on to ordinary power consumers and businesses who are already suffering under high electricity prices.”

A reading of the Gas Agreement shows that the project partners intend it to override the Oil and Gas Act and in several places it requires the government to make legislative changes to suit the project developers.

“This is totally unacceptable and in breach of the intent and purposes of the Oil and Gas Act,” the official told me. “The Gas Agreement must conform to the provisions of the Oil and Gas Act, not the other way round.”

The criticisms of the Papua LNG Gas Agreement are now so widespread and serious that doubt must be cast on its integrity unless Mr O’Neill and the project developers can provide answers and explanations to the concerns that have been raised.

We have the Department of Petroleum, members of the state negotiating team, and many senior politicians including former Attorney-General Davis Steven, Governor Phliip Undialu, Vice Minister for Petroleum Manessah Makiba and others all criticising the agreement.

It is critical for the nation that these doubts are dispelled through an immediate review of this agreement.

PNG needs to get to the bottom of this, as well as Mr O’Neill’s illegal UBS-Oil Search loan. The two are connected, and all the detail needs to be exposed to scrutiny.

Neither the Papua LNG Agreement nor the UBS-Oil Search loan are in the national interest. So whose interest is the PM promoting in these deals?  Is there an interest we don’t know about?