Minister Michael Nali said the Department of Works is managing 250 existing contracts worth K4 billion, but that budget is insufficient to see all of them through to completion. He said this number comes from workers hired by the government, but it may be higher. He was speaking at a road opening in Lae last week. “That number of contractors is wort...

According to project operator Twinza Oil Ltd, the government has raised its demand for the Pasca A Gas agreement once again, ahead of the scheduled signing. According to a statement from Twinza, the government told the firm last Friday that signing the agreement now demanded a 6% production levy. It read: “This is 4 per cent higher than the producti...

Background – Petroleum Industry in Papua New Guinea The exploration for petroleum in Papua New Guinea has a long history which dates back to early 1900s. It began with a group of Australian geologists who first came in 1913 to PNG to investigate prospects of hydrocarbon on behalf of the Australian Government. Since then exploration activities went on ...

 PNG Biomass is Oil Search’s renewable energy and sustainable tree farming business. Subject to a final investment decision, PNG Biomass will be Oil Search’s first targeted investment into the energy transition. Establishing a renewable energy and sustainable development project in the Markham Valley in Morobe Province is a strategic and sustainable di...

Farming as a business is making a huge transformation in the Gumine district of Chimbu province, located in the lush and fertile PNG Highlands.   Local farmers are eagerly participating in a potato and bulb onion project that has picked up interest seeing more than ten model farms and three bulb onion nurseries established in the Gumine Local level gov...

Commodity prices are expected to remain low leading to large losses of exports for Papua New Guinea further adding to a dim global and domestic scenario amid a second wave of the covid-19 pandemic. This is despite the fact, commodity prices for PNG’s exports recovered in the third quarter of 2020 in response to an acceleration of industry activity glob...

Despite a challenging year amid the global Covid-19 pandemic, the Kina Bank Group has recorded strong economic growth for the 12 months to December 31, 2020. This was the message from Greg Pawson, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Kina Bank. “We have delivered planned business growth across all of our existing businesses this year, de...

LACK of immediate government intervention to address a dramatic drop in coffee exports will have serious consequences for producers and the PNG economy that is very much dependent on it. This is according to the release of a discussion paper by the Papua New Guinea National Research Institute (PNGNRI) that uses data based on various factors affecting c...

‘It is a big year for Atlas Steel PNG, a local company, who is introducing Modular Houses – a new product to the PNG market during the second quarter of 2021. Business Development Manager Aliraza Agai said: ‘Modular Houses are a new addition to our Building Division which is already the largest supplier of steel buildings across PNG for the residential...

More and more women are venturing into fields predominantly held by men as PNG’s formal economy grows, hence increasing the need to widen the safety lens and address aspects of women’s safety that have typically received very little attention. The Gender Smart Safety (GSS) training program offered by the Business Coalition for Women (BCFW), is an innovati...

Ark Pacific has cleverly engineered its flat pack buildings to guarantee a minimum freight footprint for its clients.  Unlike competing products, six of Ark’s high quality flack pack units are equivalent to a single standard 20 foot shipping container when stacked together ready for transport.  Not only are freight costs drastically reduced (by up to 75 p...

Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited has been granted 100 per cent control of three Petroleum Retention Licenses (PRL) by the PNG government (KPHL). PRL 48, 49, and 50 of the Kimu, Barikewa, and Uramu gas fields have already been discovered. The three fields have the best estimation of contingent capacity (2C) of slightly more than 2 trillion cubic feet...

At its General Meeting on April 15th in Port Moresby, Kina Securities Limited (KSL) shareholders unanimously voted in favour of Kina Bank's takeover of Westpac PNG and Westpac Fiji. CEO Greg Pawson said in a statement that the shareholders' vote of confidence was "amazing." “We are very excited about this opportunity, and creating a stronger and mor...

PNG DataCo Data Center is on track to open next month, according to chief executive officer Paul Komboi. He said that the data centre's planning and physical work are over, but the technological and engineering work is still ongoing. A data centre is a set of components rather than a single thing. Servers, computing subsystems, networking switches, rou...

According to Mining Minister Johnson Tuke, the Mining (Amendment) Bill 2020, which was passed by Parliament last year, led to the contract agreement recently signed by the Government and Barrick Niugini Ltd to reopen the Porgera gold mine. The Mining (Amendment) Bill 2020 was passed by Parliament, allowing the government to invest in the production of ...

The reopening of Porgera has been welcomed by the Lae Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), as the mine provides jobs in shipping, processing, distribution, and movement of products from Lae up the Highlands. President of the LCCI, John Byrne, said that while resource projects were important for the economy, it was also encouraging to see the govern...

The economy will stay slow, according to NASFUND CEO Ian Tarutia, if the Wafi-Golpu project in Morobe and the P'nyang project in Western is further postponed. During an online employer conference, Tarutia said that the announcement of the Porgera mine reopening had given the superfund hope. “It is very positive news,” he said. “We want to see mem...

Ishmael Toroama, the President of Bougainville, argued that important industry markets are lacking in rewards. As a result, he wanted to amend the legislation to make industries like mining, fishing, irrigation, manufacturing, and tourism more attractive to investors. According to Toroama, rewriting the Inward Investment Act would greatly boost Boug...

According to the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority, the number of foreign tourists to the country declined by about 82 per cent last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its negative effects on travel (TPA). In 2020, only 39,000 foreign tourists were counted, down 170,000 from the previous year and the lowest in the last 20 years. PNG's largest sourc...

According to PNG Power Ltd, renegotiation and reviews of current contracts with independent power producers (IPPs) make the business healthier and more competitive (PPL). PPL managing director Flagon Bekker made the statement in response to questions raised by IPP industry groups (IP3) about PPL unilaterally reviewing and renegotiating current contract...

Central Governor Robert Agarobe of Papua New Guinea said the (Central) government will support the Gulf in all aspects of the US$12 billion (K41.38 billion) Papua LNG initiative, especially in terms of community benefits. He said this at the unveiling of many impact projects in Ihu, Kikori, including the Ihu Special Economic Zone (Isez). According t...

Subprojects funded by the Asian Development Bank's multi-tranche funding facility loans for the Civil Aviation Development Investment Program (CADIP) advancement are on schedule to be completed within the facility's availability span. The multi-tranche financing facility (MFF) is one of the ADB's modalities for assisting clients with their medium to lo...

Governor Ginson Saonu of Morobe wants the Wafi-Golpu project to benefit from the same benefit-sharing agreement as the current Porgera mine. He said the Porgera deal, which gave PNG stakeholders 51 per cent ownership, was good news for the Wafi-Golpu talks. “I am optimistic we will have a much more superior arrangement coming out of Wafi-Golpu,” he ...

The oil palm industry has opposed the government's directive to levy a high tax on fertiliser, agriculture's most basic input because it will bring the industry out of business. Robert Nilkare, chairman of the PNG Palm Oil Producers Association and PNG country manager of New Britain Palm Oil Ltd (NBPOL), said the oil palm industry was heavily dependent...