Jubilee Australia

Papua New Guinea prime minister ridicules report on EFIC gas project

(Australian Associated Press, Sydney, 1 May 2018) Papua New Guinea’s prime minister has dismissed as “fake news” a report that claims a partially Australian-funded liquefied natural gas project is failing to deliver a promised economic boom to his people. Peter O’Neill was in Brisbane for the Australian-PNG business forum and used a keynote speech to attack a damning report by Jubilee Australia, which questioned whether projected economic benefits were flowing from the ExxonMobil-led project. Australia’s export credit agency, Efic, made its largest ever loan of $500m to ExxonMobil, OilSearch, Santos and the PNG government in 2009. “The people of PNG would have been better off had the project not happened at all,” said report co-author Paul Flanagan, a former Australian Treasury official. OilSearch chief executive Peter Botten said the report would be subject to “rigorous analysis” to find out where Jubilee was right and where it could be challenged. The Guardian Australia reported that despite company celebrations of gas flowing since 2014 and  the 300th shipment of LNG from the project’s export terminal, the landowners in Hela hadn’t been paid any royalties. Santos chairman Keith Spence has stated that “We have met every obligation… the moneys that were promised to the landholders have been paid to the government” Predictably, this was raising tensions in the area and there were – and are – very real fears that the project could end up triggering an armed insurgency. One news agency noted that undelivered infrastructure projects which resource companies promised landowners, including roads, airports, hospitals, housing and sewerage projects, could even lead to civil war. Between 1987-1997, 20,000 people died in a civil war between PNG and its Bougainville province. Panguna, one of the world’s largest copper and gold mines, sparked that conflict.

Jubilee Australia: EFIC-funded PNG LNG Has Hurt PNG’s Economy

(Jubilee Australia, Sydney, 29 April 2018) A new report on the economy of Papua New Guinea will reopen the case for the Australian government to be held accountable for the negligent decision to lend AU$500 million (US$376.5 million) of taxpayers’ money to the PNG-LNG project. Jubilee Australia’s new report,‘Double or Nothing: The Broken Economic Promises of PNG LNG’, notes that “In 2008 Australian economics consultants, ACIL-Tasman provided inflated projections of growth in employment, essential services, household income and the broader economy if the PNG LNG project went ahead. This new analysis proves just how misleading these promises were and how PNG has slipped back into the poor policies associated with the resource curse. Currently, on almost all economic indicators, the people of PNG would have been better off had the project not happened at all.” An Australian Broadcasting Corporation business report notes that the immense benefits predicted to flow from Papua New Guinea’s liquified natural gas project have not been realised, and the country’s economy has even gone backwards on some indicators.

G20 countries need to stop using export credit agencies to finance fossil fuel projects

(FOE US, Washington, 16 October 2017) Although at least seven major countries — including Canada, France, and Germany — have made commitments to phase out coal power domestically, their export credit agencies, or ECAs, have poured money into coal plants and other fossil fuel projects in other countries. According to a new report by Friends of the Earth U.S. and Oil Change International, ECAs annually fund $32 billion worth of projects in the oil and gas sector alone. That is 11 times more than what ECAs provide to clean energy projects. The OECD Export Credit Group has implemented restrictions on financing of some coal plants but unfortunately, these restrictions are not enough to stem the destructive financing of ECAs. Key findings of the report include: From 2013 to 2015, G20 ECAs provided 12 times as much support to fossil fuels as clean energy; ECAs provided over $32 billion annually to support oil and gas projects; Japan is the worst offender, providing over $13 billion annually to fossil fuels, followed by Korea and the United States supporting almost $8 and almost $6 billion annually, respectively. An end to ECA’s support of fossil fuels would probably stop many dangerous projects from going forward. One is a coal plant in Vietnam — Long Phu 1 — that would produce at least 6.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. Another project is the development of liquefied natural gas in northern Mozambique, which has already destroyed the land of local communities and endangers unique ecosystems such as mangroves and coral reefs. The president of the World Bank recently noted that plans to build more coal-fired power plants in Asia would be a “disaster for the planet” and overwhelm the deal forged at Paris to fight climate change. The report recommends that all ECAs disclose the amount and nature of all fossil fuel-related transactions, as well as information on their decision making process, and formulate policies to phase out all support for fossil fuels. The report follows an NGO coalition’s July 2017 report showing G20 nations provide four times more public financing to fossil fuels than to renewable energy.

Australia’s export credit agency ordered to ­extend loans to coal ventures

(The Australian, Sydney, 11 September 2017) A ban on government-backed loans for onshore coal and ­resource export operations will be overturned in the “national interest” to help fund billions of dollars in projects that are threatened by the growing reluctance of the major banks to back them. Trade Minister Steve Ciobo will issue a direction this week to Australia’s export credit agency to broaden its mandate and ­extend loans to viable small-to-medium sized onshore resource ventures including coal projects and related infrastructure struggling to secure private-market ­finance… The ANZ bank last week ­declared it was unlikely to finance a proposal to extend the life of AGL’s Liddell coal-fired power station in NSW on environmental grounds despite the warnings from the energy regulator that an energy price and supply crisis was looming due to the lack of reliable baseload power… Efic has reported an increasing number of resource projects ­facing difficulties in obtaining ­private-market finance either ­because of a higher commercial risk profile in the post-mining boom environment but also due to the recent rise in aggressive campaigning by activist groups putting pressure on the banks.

Australia’s export credit agency could fund offshoring of jobs

(Guardian Australia, 16 January 2017) Australia’s export credit agency could end up financing companies that have axed their domestic workforces to manufacture more cheaply overseas, a Senate inquiry has been told. The Export Finance and Insurance Corporation could become instrumental in the “further offshoring of Australian manufacturing” under draft laws proposed by the Coalition that would scrap the requirement to fund only exporters that manufacture “substantially or wholly in Australia”. Jubilee Australia, warned in its published submission that the government’s proposed reforms fell short of what was needed to make a secretive agency accountable in light of its chequered record financing overseas mining projects linked to civil strife and environmental degradation.

No Amendment to Efic Act without Meaningful Reform

(Jubilee Australia, Sydney, 17 January 2017) Jubilee Australia has demanded that no expansion of Efic’s mandate be allowed unless the institution improves its transparency and due diligence. Jubilee’s concerns, summed up in an article in the Guardian today, said that any changes to the Efic Act should include better transparency and accountability with regard to its social and environmental assessment processes and a removal of its exemption from the freedom of information act. The demands were made in a joint submission with the Australia Institute to a Senate Inquiry into proposed reforms to Efic.

Papua New Guinea troops to protect huge Exxon-Mobil Ex-Im supported gas project

(wsws.org, Jacksonville, 19 December 2016) The Papua New Guinea (PNG) government announced on Friday that it will deploy military personnel to stop “violence” near the country’s biggest resources installation, the Exxon-Mobil Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project…The security and viability of the ExxonMobil operation is a key concern in Washington. In November 2010, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited PNG and noted that the US Export-Import Bank was helping finance the ExxonMobil project, noting “China is in there every day in every way trying to figure out how it’s going to come in behind us, come in under us.”… Traditional landowners are now threatening to physically attack the LNG plant over the government’s failure to pay promised royalties and equity in the project. The landowners are owed $1 billion kina ($US315 million) in royalties.
Jubilee Australia has had concerns about the potential militarisation of the project since its inception,’ said Director Luke Fletcher . ‘We first raised these concerns in 2009 in our Risky Business report, and more fully developed them in 2012 with Pipe Dreams.’ He questioned the characterisation of the violence as simply tribal. “If that is so, why has it suddenly broken out now, just as landowner unhappiness with the project escalates? And why engage Exxon and Oil Search (project operators) to assist with policing the area?