B’ville refinery commissions new generator

THE Bougainville’s endeavour to increase self-reliance under the Toroama administration achieved another milestone last week with the commissioning of the Bougainville refinery generator.
The 150KVA generator was commissioned by the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) Minister for Finance and Treasury Mathias Salas in Arawa on Friday.
ABG President Ishmael Toroama said: “This is an important milestone for us as we strive to raise internal revenue for Bougainville through economic development projects.
“The projected annual turnover from Bougainville Refinery is estimated to be about K150 million to K200 million.
“This will quadruple the current internal revenue of K50 million which we only doubled from K25 million last year.”
Toroama said under the 60-40 arrangement between the investor and the government, 10 per cent of the revenue would be reserved for community projects in the constituencies on Bougainville.
He said the gold refinery would be going online next month once the rest of the equipment arrive on Bougainville.