Flooding of estate not a big worry, assures NBPOL chief

THE oil palm plantations of New Britain Palm Oil Ltd (NBPOL) went under water after prolonged heavy rains in West New Britain province but the company is taking it easy.
The company, which is the largest in Australasia, has over 40,000ha of planted estate.
General manager James Graham told The National there was no threat right now as far as they were concerned.
Some sectors, however, expressed fears that the flooding of the estate and the prolonged rains could cause significant losses to the company.
But Mr Graham discounted this, saying: “These are the normal seasonal rains and the normal daily operations are being carried out here at the plantation.”
The plantation area is on a low-lying area which is normally flooded for at least 12 hours whenever there are heavy rains.
The drainage system in and around the plantations and road networks are designed in such a way to handle flooding.
Mr Graham said: “We expect high levels of rainfalls at this time of the year and so, it is nothing out of the ordinary.
“Normal operations of harvesting from January to February are currently taking place,” he said.
The palm oil company has five oil mills, a refinery, seed production and plant breeding facility on site.