Dept eyes change of status in 12 months

Business

THE Department of Petroleum and Energy is working on becoming an “authority” in the next six to 12 months, acting secretary Kepsey Puiye says.
He has written to the PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum seeking assistance to have the authority in place.
He said the chamber had “given me representatives from the industry such as Santos, ExxonMobil, Oil Search, Repsol. So I’m working with them now”.
“I need to set up a secretariat for the authority,” Puiye said.
“The secretariat will be the main vehicle to undertake all the key deliverables and activities to establish the authority.
“I will actually engage with the Chief Secretary (Isaac Lupari) to bring the work through with line agencies to see a smooth transition from a department to the authority.”
Puiye said the petroleum sector in the country was expanding.
“We see a lot of positive signs in terms of the PNG LNG project.  The project is tremendous,” he said.
“We’ve got the second LNG project lined up.”