PNG ‘threw away’ its own pot of gold

While the Minister for Petroleum and Energy focuses all his attention and resources on petroleum, the energy division has been sitting on its backside doing nothing for donkey years.
The Petroleum Minister and the State Enterprises Minister appear to place a lot of emphasis on the oil and gas operations that is expected to generate substantial revenue for PNG.
However, they neglect the fact that PNG needs fuel itself.
The recent outcry by Morobe Governor Luther Wenge over the continuous power blackout in Lae clearly shows the Government’s negligence on energy.
There is a parallel relationship between petroleum, mining and energy.
Energy is the integral part of the development of petroleum and mining sectors.
PNG has world class gold mines and huge deposits of oil and gas.
PNG Power should be sourcing for funds so that it can tap and turn our own gas to generate power for the whole country.
People are talking about clean energy today and we have that in abundance.
Our Prime Minister is one of the few leaders campaigning for lower emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
But we are doing nothing to tap the gas for our own use.
That should be the first thing the Government should have done, converting gas into electricity so we can sell energy to the developers of the LNG project instead of wasting time and resources on BSA and LBBSA.
All the giant mining, gas and oil companies are generating their own electricity and PNG Power can only look on helplessly when it could have been the sole provider.
As the mining and petroleum companies continue to expand, PNG will continue to lose billions of kina because the Government has failed to look after PNG Power.
The ministers responsible must seriously look into this by coming out with a policy framework so that everyone, regardless of whether they are staying in the remote or urban areas, has access to electricity.
If we want to be a developed country, we must be able to provide power to everyone.
We have an abundance of gas and thermal power, yet we are doing nothing to convert them for our own use.
Countries like China, for example, invest millions to generate electricity so that they can power their industry.
Unless we do that, no amount of LNG projects or world class gold mines can bring us to the next level.

Jeffers Teargun
Via email