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BP - Tangguh

DTE raises critical questions about the giant Tangguh natural gas and LNG project, operated by BP in Bintuni Bay, West Papua.

Now in the production phase, this multi-billion dollar project has brought rapid and massive change to local communities whose customary lands have been used to site the project.

DTE has questioned BP about human rights, social and environmental impacts and the wider political context and reports extensively about Tangguh.

Clearing land for the Tangguh project construction

Bintuni Bay communities want accountability at Tangguh

DTE 95, March 2013

Communities have criticised the lack of transparency and unfulfilled promises at the giant Tangguh gas installation operated by UK-based energy multinational BP in Papua Barat.

BP Tangguh's climate change commitment under scrutiny

Down to Earth No.80-81, June 2009

Operations at BP's controversial Tangguh gas project in West Papua are now underway. Serious questions over security, sovereignty, human rights, land rights, the impacts on indigenous communities and on the local environment will continue to be raised as the venture becomes fully operational and starts exporting gas to China, Korea and North America1 In this article we focus on a different issue: that of Tangguh and climate change.

Multinational corporations lining up to profit from West Papua's resources

Down to Earth No. 76-77 May 2008

Another year, another set of record profits from West Papua's mineral resources.

The Westminster conference centre just alongside the UK's Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey seem a long way away from the frontier town of Timika or, for that matter, the prawn fisherfolk of Bintuni Bay in West Papua. However, each year this is the scene of the Annual General Meeting of Rio Tinto PLC, a 40% joint venture stakeholder in the expanded Grasberg mine in the highlands of West Papua.

Tangguh - adapting to the West Papuan context?

Down to Earth No. 73, May 2007


It has been two years since Down to Earth's last detailed report on BP's huge Tangguh gas project in Bintuni Bay, West Papua. Surprisingly little has changed.


From BP's point of view much has changed at Tangguh - the project is now well into its construction phase (70% complete as of March 2007) and is due to go 'onstream' in 2008. However, the same issues, the same concerns, the same doubts keep surfacing. How can this mega-project possibly fit into the realities of West Papuan life?

Tangguh - ignoring the reality

Down to Earth No 65  May 2005

In February 2004, DTE took a detailed look at BP's controversial gas project in Bintuni Bay, West Papua. One year on, we ask how far concerns over human rights, security and local people's rights have been addressed.

The Tangguh gas extraction and liquid natural gas (LNG) installation in the Bird's Head region of West Papua got the final go-ahead from BP on March 7th. As a result, the area will experience massive social, environmental and economic changes.

International concern: a letter to BP

Down to Earth No 65  May 2005

The following letter, slightly abridged here, was addressed to Lord John Browne, CEO of BP, and is dated December 8th 2004.

As individuals and organisations in West Papua and internationally who are closely following the Tangguh LNG Project in West Papua, we are writing to express our mounting concerns and to call for your immediate intervention…

…Our concerns are centred on:

  • inadequate progress on key human rights commitments
  • a worrying lack of transparency
  • a fai

The Tangguh gas project: what hope for human rights protection in a worsening political climate?

Down to Earth No. 60, February 2004

With the political context worsening and militarisation in West Papua increasing, BP's commitments to human rights and its 'community-based security policy'- look more and more flimsy.

In 2003, West Papua continued to suffer the impacts of Indonesian military repression.