Papua New Guinea's parliament has unanimously passed four legislative amendments tied to the Papua LNG project, a step Prime Minister James Marape said would help unlock an estimated US$14.5 billion in foreign investment.
Marape said the passage marked a major milestone as countries compete for international capital amid challenging investment conditions, Islands Business reported. "The government is now committed to progressing the project towards a final investment decision," he said.
The bills were the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2026, the Resource Contracts Fiscal Stabilisation (Amendment) Bill 2026, the Oil and Gas (Amendment) Bill 2026 and the Stamp Duties (Amendment) Bill 2026.
The prime minister said the amendments gave effect to negotiated fiscal arrangements, but did not include permanent reductions in headline corporate income tax or production levy rates.
Instead, he said, a price-linked benefit-sharing mechanism uses a neutral benchmark of US$81 per barrel, providing temporary support when oil prices are low and an additional premium to the state when prices strengthen. The incentive and the premium are each capped at US$1.95 billion.
Marape said the government had also secured additional PNG LNG benefits, including improved royalty calculations, domestic gas pricing arrangements, discounted gas for community power generation at Caution Bay, and an option to acquire an additional 2.5 per cent participating interest in Papua LNG.
He said landowner, provincial government and local-level government royalty and development levy entitlements remained fully protected.
"Our Government has worked hard to strike the right balance between attracting major international investment and protecting the interests of Papua New Guinea," Marape said.
He said the expected investment would create employment opportunities, support local businesses, drive infrastructure development and boost economic growth, particularly in Gulf and Central provinces. He thanked parliamentarians for their unanimous support and commended Petroleum Minister Jimmy Maladina for steering the bills through parliament.
Marape also acknowledged successive political leaders, the State Negotiating Team, government departments and agencies, provincial leaders, landowners and the project partners Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited and Mineral Resources Development Company, along with the chief executives of TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil.
The whole arrangement therefore rests on a single figure, and it is worth stating the figure plainly. Eighty-one dollars a barrel is neutral. Above it, the state receives a premium. Below it, the project receives support. Neutrality, in the legislation, is not a disposition. It is a price.
Brent crude was trading at around $115 a barrel on Monday, according to a Times of India market report. The market is therefore some $34 away from neutral, or about 42 per cent non-neutral, and has been so for some time.
This newspaper notes the difficulty for both parties. A barrel at $81 is the only barrel about which nothing has to be done. Every other barrel holds a view, and the view is worth money, payable in one direction or the other depending on which way it leans.
The caps make the position tidier still. Each side's entitlement stops at $1.95 billion, so neutrality has a ceiling in both directions: the oil price may be as wrong as it likes, but only $1.95 billion of the wrongness is collectible, after which further deviation is free.
The Department of Unnecessary Research has asked the State Negotiating Team how a price can be declared neutral in a market that has not recently traded there, and whether neutrality that requires a payment to maintain is properly described as neutral at all.
No answer is expected, and none is needed. Eighty-one dollars remains the only price at which nobody is owed anything.