Photo credit: The National
The Petroleum Sector National Content Policy is anticipated to be finished by the end of this month and presented to the National Executive Council the following month, according to Department of Petroleum and Energy Secretary David Manau.
Manau stated that this strategy will also establish an office to look at the practical elements of assisting the sector in profiting from national content during the Chamber of Mines and Petroleum workshop in Port Moresby.
“If successful, a national content policy intervention may increase national job creation, boost the domestic private sector businesses, facilitate technology transfer and build a
competitive national workforce,” he said.
“Main challenge worldwide is that national content goals are often unfulfilled and the opportunities are not captured and not tangibly measured.
“National content in the petroleum sector should firstly aim at the landowners who give access for the investor's licenses to gain access into their regions to operate.
“And the circle spreads to the local level, district, provincial, and the national level,
“Each of the stages also looks at the different magnitude and impact of the project, for example in the early exploration stages in the petroleum sector, you will only focus on the bull's eye, so your social licensing is you deal with the landowners on the ground, you have access to them, and then you give them some services, some businesses.
“At the next level, now if Papua LNG and P’nyang come on in the next 5 years, the national content plan in the petroleum sector should also look at the national level down to the host communities.
“So you look at the national level, you are talking Steamships, Curtain Brothers, however, if they can participate with local level company through a JV arrangement participation, that is even better, the local content policy works for all.”
Manau said that the national content requirement will affect upcoming projects in the pipeline, such as:
- The PNG LNG already has a national content strategy in place that has been effectively completed and executed, and it may eventually coincide with the national content policy. The difficulties for us are that they provide reports on their corporate image, which we require in order to measure;
- FEED for Papua LNG begins in January 2023; first gas is expected in January 2024;
- Construction on P'nyang will begin in 2026 or 2027 (project sequencing will transfer trained labour from Papua to P'nyang);
- Pasca offshore Gas Project;
- PDL 10 Stanley Gas; and,
- Future oil/gas projects.
Reference: Esila, Peter. The National (17 October 2022). “All eyes on petroleum policy”.
