The National newspaper quoted Department of Petroleum acting secretary Bernard Pawih as saying that the poor response was due to the change of petroleum minister during the licensing process, along with disputes regarding outstanding applications over some of the blocks on offer.

He added that the blocks that were not under application had been reserved by Acting Petroleum Minister William Duma to allow "competitive applications with appropriate work commitments".

The department said that 15 companies had bought bid packages for the blocks, which cover a total of about 107,000 square kilometres in the Gulf of Papua, Papuan Plateau, the Moresby trough and parts of the Coral Sea.

It added that it will go ahead with the processing of the lone application and prepare a report for the Petroleum Advisory Board, which will in turn prepare a report on its recommendations as to the successful applicant for the acting petroleum minister and the National Executive Council.