Massive developments for Hela

THE Hela region will see some of the biggest infrastructure and public facilities never seen before in PNG if the LNG project comes on stream, an ExxonMobil source said.
The source said apart from the memorandum of agreement signed in the Benefits Sharing Agreement (BSA) in Kokopo, East New Britain province, last May with the Government, there were some impact projects that would start as the project begins.
Most of the major infrastructure would be delivered by ExxonMobil, the developer of the project.
The source said landowners and the people of Hela and PNG would benefit from road  running from Kikori in Gulf province to Tari and onto Hides, Southern Highlands province, to be built at the cost of more than K100 million.
The source said the Highlands Highway, including bridges, would be upgraded from Lae, Morobe province, to Tari in order to transport heavy equipment and machinery for the construction period while ring roads like Kutubu-Poroma- Nipa-Tari road would also be upgraded.
The source said an international airport, which is 5km long and 1km wide, would also be built at Komo station while training centres for the LNG workforce would be built at Yuni near Nogoli Hides gas field and at Port Moresby Technical College.
He said the construction team would move from Port Moresby to Juha through the pipeline corridor within the four construction years and literately “it is like spending nine months in each project sites”.