On 23 July, TotalEnergies – which leads the controversial Papua LNG project with co-venturers ExxonMobil, Santos and ENEOS - told investors on an earnings call “ we are working all together very closely with ExxonMobil, with Santos, with the government, of course. The government has just launched the last part of the procedures, the local hearings... The objective is clearly to sanction all that before year-end.” That same day, Santos noted in its second quarter (Q2) report: “Papua LNG remains on track for (FID) in the fourth quarter 2026 with key regulatory approvals secured and the government-led Development Forum having commenced in July, a key milestone ahead of FID.”   

Despite its name, a development forum in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is not a far-reaching process focused on development outcomes. It refers to a negotiation on how specific revenues from extractive projects – such as royalties or a development levy – will be distributed between various levels of government and potentially landowners.  

What neither company mentioned was that nearly a fortnight before, all, or almost all, clans in the gasfield lease area known as PRL15 had withdrawn their consent for the project and the forum appears to be a catalyst for a number of clans speaking out. 

This article captures some of the statements, press comments or social media posts from PNG made in recent weeks raising concerns about the project – developments are fast evolving.  

11 clans call for a new, independently overseen FPIC process 

On 10 July, the Elk Antelope Gas Project Area Landowner Association Inc., which represents all 11 clans in PRL15, formally advised TotalEnergies in a letter that clans withdrew their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), according to reporting (here and here). Landowners called for a new, independently supervised FPIC process and an investigation into the conduct of consultants. 

As Lucielle Paru, the head of the Papua Native Landowners Association Inc wrote: 

“The 11 clans of PRL 15 have withdrawn the current Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) process. This is more than a local dispute. It is a wake up call for every Indigenous community affected by the Papua LNG Project... Landowners have too often been divided, excluded, under informed and expected to accept outcomes they did not shape. That must end...” 

She emphasized that without customary land, there is no project.  No investigation has been announced. Subsequently, it was reported that the chief of the Jao Hoo clan stated that he did not agree with the position on “Development Forum pushback” from other members of the association. It’s unclear if this relates to the withdrawal of FPIC or other factors. More broadly, there is no transparency on if clans elsewhere have withheld their FPIC. 

In Central Province – where the project’s downstream would occur – it was reported that several chiefs raised separate concerns, emphasizing that the project would change the landscape and traditional behaviours, and that communities are already facing disharmony. In an official letter, chiefs requested relevant agencies to undertake a thorough assessment.   

Landowners left out? 

For years there have been mounting voices questioning the quality of landowner identification studies and the potential exclusion of legitimate customary landowners. To date, these have not been resolved.   

In recent weeks, Kairuku Coastal Segment 4 landowners called for Delena, Poukama and their eight clans to be included, after they were omitted from social mapping and landowner identification exercises. Media reported that the chair of the Kairuku Papua LNG Offshore Pipeline Holdings Limited – representing communities along the offshore pipeline area from Yule Island to Ala'ala – noted that “while 15 clans were recognised under the determination, 26 coastal clans from five villages were left out despite their traditional fishing grounds falling within, or close to, the project's offshore pipeline corridor.” The organisation says that it has formally appealed to the Petroleum Minister and the National Petroleum Authority to review the Ministerial Determination recognising landowners. 

According to one article, the Moripi tribe stated that the pipeline will run through 80 kilometres of their customary fishing waters, asking why they are not adequately recognised. They also raised concerns about the impact of the PNG LNG pipeline on what they observe is a dramatic drop in rock lobsters and if Papua LNG will add to it. 

The Central Province Governor stated that “we cannot allow legitimate customary clans to be marginalised” and called for the inclusion of all legitimate landowners. She noted that court challenges and disputes could lead to further delays. 

Member for Kikori in Gulf Province and Minister for Provincial and Local Level Government Affairs Soroi Eoe also raised concerns about landowner recognition. 

In a 6 July press release, Joseph Ka'au, Customary Chief of the Kaimare Tribe in the Purari Delta called for the government to publicly disclose the projects environmental permits (and elsewhere raised concerns about hydrogen sulfide):

“Without access to the permit, the people of the Purari Delta cannot know precisely what has been authorised, what monitoring will occur, or what safeguards are in place to protect our river system. If this environmental permit is implemented and the project proceeds, it could be a catastrophe for our environment and threaten the future of my people.” 

In July, the Purari Development Association Inc announced that it has brought a legal case against the state. On 22 July it stated on social media that the court had awarded a 1-month injunction stopping the development forum. This relates to the association’s call for landowner recognition for nine tribes. The forum that started in July – amidst a host of issues – was postponed for several weeks. The injunction was later overturned and the forum resumed. 

Key documents kept secret from the public and affected peoples  

Between PNG government and the foreign companies behind Papua LNG, a host of key documents are being kept hidden from the public and affected people, including:  

• Environmental permits  
• Precise locations and routes of key project infrastructure
• Decommissioning plans​
• Social mapping 
• Landowner identification studies​ 
• Resettlement plans 
• Current Human Rights Impact Assessment
• Climate Change Risk Assessment  
• Final Socio-Economic Impact Study​
• Economic modelling 

Even the project cost is unclear. In its forum presentation, the government listed it as US$15.6 billion – higher than the US$14-15 billion often cited.  

As Lucielle Paru writes: “Equity, royalties and investment vehicles are important, but they are not substitutes for rights. Landowners must first have access to independent legal, economic, environmental and technical advice before any decisions are made.” Yet while the government will spend 100 million kina (US$22 million) on the forum and has implied it will find US$2-3 billion to buy into the project – neither it, nor the project – have provided any financial resources for clans or tribes to hire their own lawyers or technical advisors. Many peoples in the project area of influence operate largely in the land-based, rather than monetary, economy. 

While local people in affected areas have immense ecological knowledge, by some estimates, formal literacy in Gulf province is at 30%. Shockingly, there is still no public record of any community information materials that clearly explain the project, its risks, its impacts and peoples’ rights in a way accessible, and understandable, to local people. There are no official recordings of what information was provided verbally.

Any consultant willing to suggest that FPIC, or human rights, can be met in such circumstances is clearly not qualified.  

60,000+ people affected by the Papua LNG project?  

In a Development Forum presentation, the government listed the total population of “beneficiaries” of the project as 220+ clans with a population of 63,000+ Indigenous people.  

The project’s upstream Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) stated that 12,700 Indigenous people would be in the “project area of influence”. Yet the government upstream and midstream figure is 45,082 people – 350% higher.  

This raises the question: Is it possible that the project’s initial studies were so flawed that they missed over 30,000 people?  

No source for the government figure was given. It’s not possible to check if this stems from landowner identification studies because they are not public.  

Obvious violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights under human rights law 

This outcry has long been forewarned. At least 15 NGO case studies or reports have raised environmental, climate or human rights concerns about Papua LNG. A 2024 Fair Finance Guide Japan report stated that the project violates a host of ESG standards.  

In December 2025, six organisations filed a complaint, supported by a 60+ page complaint document. The document outlines how the project is in breach of six of the 10 Equator Principles and at least four related IFC Performance Standards. It extensively discusses FPIC, showing violations of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and international human rights law. The complaint was directed to Equator Principles Limited against MUFG bank, the project’s reported financial advisor and any other financiers involved. Equator Principles Limited never investigated, on the principle that it does not engage with complaints. 

TotalEnergies issued a short response but complainants point out that this does not substantively address the issues raised. 

FPIC is not only important for human rights, it also serves as an important check and balance to avoid corruption or abuses of power that are typically hidden. In early 2026, PNG received its worst score on perceptions of corruption in a decade, now ranking alongside Nigeria and was grey listed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). In 2025, there was an alleged corruption scandal in the state-owned Kumul Petroleum that has a buy-in right to Papua LNG. Its former Managing Director denies the allegations.  

TotalEnergies’ alarming track record of human rights concerns 

TotalEnergies has faced serious human rights concerns elsewhere from those affected by its projects in Mozambique, Uganda and Tanzania, as well as those raised by UN Special Rapporteurs (accessible here, including TotalEnergies’ responses, or here). In November 2025, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) filed a criminal complaint to the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor which has a mandate to investigate international crimes. According to ECCHR, the complaint alleges TotalEnergies’ “complicity in war crimes, enforced disappearance and torture” regarding its links to a so-called “container massacre” that allegedly took place at TotalEnergies’ Mozambique facility in 2021 and called on the prosecutor to investigate. TotalEnergies rejects the allegations.  

Papua LNG violates Indigenous Peoples’ rights  

Already, at least 32 financial institutions are known to have ruled out project financing, including over 20% of Equator Principles Financial Institutions and 13 of the financiers that backed PNG’s first major gas project PNG LNG. This is all the more reason for commercial banks to publicly commit to not finance Papua LNG. Financial institutions facing legal or financial liabilities for the environmental or human rights impacts of what they finance is today virtually unprecedented. Yet if Papua LNG is financed, and has the impacts feared, it’s not unimaginable that it may be floated as a potential global test case.  

The project’s extraordinary biodiversity risks may pose a particular concern to Chinese financial institutions. The project area of influence includes 80 new-to-science species and 27 species already at high or extreme risk of extinction - rendering it impossible to mitigate biodiversity risks. Chinese financial institutions could be sensitive that support to the project may be perceived as undermining China’s efforts to support global action on biodiversity and its legacy in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework - especially given the many renewable energy project alternatives. 

There are broader due diligence concerns regarding several banks that have so far failed to rule out financing the project. It also appears unlikely that they are well-versed in the PNG context. Internationally, MUFG is facing six separate human rights complaints. Barclays’ due diligence standards are already in the spotlight after a 2025 UK Financial Conduct Authority fine and multiple shareholder legal cases. UBS is still reeling from a previous PNG scandal that led to a national Commission of Inquiry into a UBS loan. Any Standard Chartered and HSBC participation in a loan would appear an unusual choice as they try to convince Asian regulators to let them launch lucrative digital currencies and similar products. It would be an inopportune time to make industry headlines for potential breaches of their own due diligence commitments in a FATF grey-listed country. 

That PRL15 clans have withdrawn their consent and that the project has not yet resolved landownership questions should present an existential crisis.

That neither TotalEnergies nor Santos acknowledged such concerns in recent statements is deeply unsettling, as is the apparent silence of ExxonMobil and ENEOS. To state the obvious, if a project does not have the consent of landowners - be they freehold or customary - it cannot, and should not, move ahead until it does. 

This is especially the case in Papua New Guinea which has a tumultuous history of foreign companies exploiting its resources and people. 

If this is the disrespect local people receive before the project begins, we can only imagine what will come after.