Companies urged to improve to meet LNG requirements

Business, Main Stories
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By SHEILA LASIBORI

PAPUA New Guinea companies need to step up their standards to the business requirements associated with the PNG liquefied natural gas (LNG) project.
This was because most PNG companies, especially landowner (lanco) companies, lack most or some of the eight basic requirements of a viable business entity, Maudi Banks-Bennett, the manager for the Enterprise Centre at the Institute of Banking and Business Management (IBBM), said.
According to Ms Banks-Bennett the Port Moresby-based IBBM will assist project developer ExxonMobil and project operator Esso Highlands Ltd assess the viability of business organisations as they vie to sell their goods and services in the PNG LNG project through spin-off business activities.
She was particularly concerned that some of the landowner companies that had sought information and assistance from IBBM lacked some or most of the standard required criteria.
The eight points are: organisation and governance; business management; finance; personnel; safety, health and environment; quality; equipment; and citizenship and reputation. 
“If you want to succeed in business, this is the way for you. Papua New Guineans have to step up to the mark and perform,” she said, adding the normal process was that companies that approached the centre were included on a database and assessed along the criteria also upon consultation with the contractors and subcontractors.
“We assess them for corporate governance, finance, human resource, planning and management, quality control, occupational health and safety,” she said shortly after her presentation on the role of IBBM in the LNG project through its association with project developers and contracted companies.
She also outlined the business qualities that business entities should possess in order to be viable.
This was during the workshop between local businesses and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors which started yesterday and will end on Friday.
More than 100 participants from organisations ranging from engineering and construction companies, information technology, electrical companies, travel agents, wholesalers and distributors of heavy machinery and equipment aimed for such intense projects among others, and people claiming to represent lancos along the impacted areas especially in the Southern Highlands province.
Ms Banks-Bennett said the workshop was for the centre to disseminate information on how the PNG-based companies could prepare themselves to meet all the necessary criteria to be able to venture in the project.