Oil Search’s purchase of a minority interest in a Papua New Guinean gas field for almost four times the price paid by one of its partners will be the focus of a royal commission charged with investigating a failed loan extended to the Pacific nation by investment bank UBS.

In his opening statement on Wednesday morning, counsel assisting the inquiry Dr James Renwick SC, highlighted Oil Search’s $US900 million purchase of a 22.8 per cent stake in the Elk Antelope gas fields. He noted that only three months earlier in 2014, French giant Total paid $US613 million for a 61.3 per cent interest in the same fields.