Summits opening doors for big firms

PREVIOUS petroleum and energy summits have seen big companies enquiring for licences and proceeding with drilling in the petroleum and energy sectors of the country, says Petroleum Minister Dr. Fabian Pok.
“Such conferences are good for us to put Papua New Guinea on the world map to say that we have the resources,” he said.
“After the second summit last year, we have given confidence to Total that will be moving very fast.
“Now we are going to move to the P’nyang gas project in Western.
“In a few years’ time, there will be three or four different gas fields in the country.”
Pok said the number of delegates had increased from 500 to 600 this year and sponsors had also increased for the third PNG Petroleum and Energy Summit and was also a result of the confidence gained from hosting previous conferences.
Kumul Petroleum Holdings Ltd managing director Wapu Sonk said nobody had talked about domestic market obligations (DMO), national content and third party access prior to the conference.
“This conference was used as a launching pad to launch the white paper that the Government through the department launched as a policy paper.
“As a result of that policy, there is already DMO printing of the draft agreements that have been secured, discussions with the state negotiations team has DMO on its side, national content is there and third party access will be included,”he said.
“That’s what you get when you have a specific summit.
“The LNG buyers are actually coming here to talk to us because they know we own the gas and we want to develop it with them, and not going to Sydney.
“So all these people attending the conference are LNG buyers, potential contractors and sub-contractors that are here, looking for work to partner with PNG companies.
“We have been very strong in terms of promoting national content so they will be looking for partners to partner with in the next phase of development of projects.”
Sonk said such conferences provided platform for interactions with potential business partners.
Energy Minister Sam Basil said that in the energy sector, the independent power producers
(IPP) were only talking about hydro, generator, heavy fuel and diesel.
“Now with the DMO, gas has been thrown into the mix and very exciting that everybody are now looking into the use of gas in power production,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pok said major announcements will be made during the summit.