Papua New Guinea MRA — China Geological Survey Geoscience Cooperation MoU (2025–2030)

Mechanism

The MRA Geological Survey Division (GSD) and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources — a technical agency of China's Ministry of Natural Resources-affiliated China Geological Survey (CGS) — signed the MoU on 14 November 2024 in Port Moresby. Signatories: MRA Managing Director Jerry Garry and Officer-in-Charge Geological Survey Division Gabriel Kuna (PNG); counterpart official Dr. Wang Tiangang (CGS).

The MoU is a renewal and successor to an initial 2012 cooperation agreement that lapsed during the COVID period. It establishes a five-year operational framework (2025–2030) with two substantive pillars:

1. Geoscience Survey — joint geochemical mapping, soil sampling, and rock sampling across PNG's mineral provinces, with physical samples transported to China for laboratory analysis. This is the core knowledge-transfer mechanism: raw geological data generated in PNG enters Chinese state-affiliated analytical pipelines.

2. Capacity Building — funded opportunities for MRA/GSD geoscientists to attend Chinese universities for Masters and Doctorate degrees.

MRA Managing Director Garry publicly framed the MoU as an exploration-pipeline investment: "If we do not invest in exploration, we risk running out of new mining projects." and "This partnership with China provides an opportunity to generate new data that could attract new exploration companies."

Downstream implications

• Exploration-pipeline bias: In CGS-mapped territories (DRC Copperbelt, Zambia), Chinese-

affiliated explorers have historically concentrated in provinces where CGS geoscientists first produced the mapping data. If this pattern replicates in PNG, the MoU creates a structural advantage for Chinese exploration companies — particularly in PNG's underdeveloped mineral provinces away from the established Highlands corridor (Ok Tedi, Porgera, Wafi-Golpu).

• Competing architecture tension: The Quad Critical Minerals Framework (US-AU-JP-IN),

Australia's Critical Minerals Strategy, and the US DFC Pacific critical-minerals push are all active competing architectures seeking upstream PNG resource influence. The CGS MoU effectively pre-empts an equivalent Western geoscience-cooperation instrument for the 2025–2030 mapping cycle.

• PNG Mining Bill 2025 interaction: PNG's simultaneously progressing Mining Bill 2025

(public consultation released February 2025) formalises state equity rights up to 30% in new projects. If CGS-derived mapping generates new project leads, Chinese exploration entities would be operating under a more resource-nationalist licensing framework than existed when the 2012 MoU was established.

• Capacity-building dependency: Placing PNG government geoscientists in Chinese

universities for multi-year degree programs creates institutional and professional relationships that reinforce the cooperation architecture beyond the formal 5-year MoU term.

Open questions

• Will any of the geochemical survey datasets become publicly accessible (e.g., via the MRA

geodata portal), or will they be restricted to the bilateral partnership?

• Does the MoU specify exclusive mapping rights in designated provinces, or is it

non-exclusive (allowing parallel Australian/US geoscience cooperation)?

• How does this interact with the PNG Mining Bill 2025 state-equity provisions — will

CGS-generated prospect data be treated as a national resource under the new framework?

• Will a peer instrument from Australia (Geoscience Australia) or the US (USGS) materialise

as a counterbalancing Pacific geoscience cooperation MoU?