The shallow tremor struck in waters near the sparsely populated New Britain island, 450 kilometres northeast of the capital Port Moresby, the agency reported.
The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a widespread tsunami warning.
New Britain, the largest island of the Bismarck Archipelago, is east of mainland New Guinea and has a population of around 500,000.
It lies on the 4,000-kilometre Pacific-Australia plate, which forms part of the "Ring of Fire", a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates.
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