Photo: KPHL managing director Mr Wapu Sonk (centre) with Mr Zheng Lijun, President SNEC and Mr Chen Lie, Vice President CSCEC, at the MOU signing ceremony
The Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited fabrication facility is now one step closer, after the signing of an MOU with two international companies to oversee the engineering, procurement and construction phase of the project.
Managing director Mr Wapu Sonk said, “We have now secured an MOU with Sinopec (Ningbo) Engineering and Construction (SNEC) and China State Construction and Engineering Company (CSCEC) to work with us on the EPC phase of this fabrication facility. This complements the agreements we already have in place with two Dubai based companies – A2Z LLC to design the heavy fabrication engineering plant and Fabtech International to manage the facility for us.”
“The Facility will have a capacity of 20,000 tonnes per year, producing steel, mechanical, piping and electrical modular packages, such as those that will be necessary in the construction phase of the Papua LNG Project and subsequent LNG and mining projects.”
Mr Sonk outlined that the fabrication facility would provide direct employment for 1000 skilled Papua New Guineans and indirect jobs for up to 3000 more local people when operating at full capacity. He noted that if the facility was run 24hrs per day, the number of jobs could even double.
Managing director Sonk added, “Kumul Petroleum is expecting to work with the Papua LNG Project’s EPC contractors to start using the Facility when the project achieves FID and enters the construction phase later this year or early next year.”
Mr Sonk reinforced that the Facility was designed to meet national content requirements for petroleum, energy, mining and major infrastructure construction in the country, for provision of professional technical services, in addition to the likely high number of employment and training opportunities that such projects would generate.
Mr Sonk added,” Site works for the construction of the Facility and associated construction training academy have already started, close to the existing ExxonMobil managed LNG plant at Caution Bay outside Port Moresby. Kumul Petroleum is advertising for recruitment of trainees for the Facility, through the KPHL job search and advertisement software portal (www.wanpng.com) and other agencies.”
“We intend that the Papua LNG Project will have a greater national content than the previous PNG LNG Project, and this Facility will contribute greatly towards this goal.”
