SYDNEY—Papua New Guinea has played down the impact of slumping global energy prices on the South Pacific nation, now on the cusp of an energy boom fueled by liquefied natural gas exports to Asia and expected to be one of the world’s fastest-growing economies next year. Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said he was confident PNG would be able to ride out the slump and bring national debt back below a legislated cap of 35% of GDP, despite oil price declines exceeding forecast expectations in the country’s recent $6 billion budget. “My belief is that current levels of global prices, particularly for oil, is unsustainable. It is bound to recover,” Mr. O’Neill told The Wall Street Journal in an interview after the 12-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, sent oil prices plunging by saying it would keep daily supply output at 30 million barrels a day, despite a global glut. “Of course, that will also mean that revenue inflow for Papua New Guinea is going to be sustained in the long-term,” Mr. O’Neill said on the sidelines of an investment summit held in neighboring Australia, meant to encourage foreign investors to look again at PNG, rocked also this year by political turmoil and accusations of economic impropriety leveled against the prime minister. Papua New Guinea, an island nation of seven million people, almost half of whom live beneath the poverty line, is set to become the world’s newest resource powerhouse, with world-beating growth forecast next year as new energy projects begin their first full operating year.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 13:21:41 +0000
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