Puma has big plans for PNG

 Puma Energy in the next two years will spend US$220 million (K569.21 million) to better upgrade the NapaNapa refinery outside Port Moresby, an executive says.

This was one of the announcement by the firm yesterday among other investments plans Puma Energy has for Papua New Guinea.

Asia-Pacific and Middle-East chief operating officer Robert Jones said these plans would transform Puma Energy’s operations into a major petroleum hub for the region.

He said the firm plans to further invest into the local communities to create jobs, build skills and support the local economic growth.

“Puma Energy has always committed and invested wholeheartedly into the communities in which we operate,” he said.

“By upgrading the infrastructure we will turn the business into a major petroleum hub for the Asia-Pacific region which will bring many important opportunities to Papua New Guinea.

“We are helping to build Papua New Guinea’s economic sustainability with our graduate recruitment programme, by ensuring employees are given world class training and developing local service stations as state of the art facilities.”

Jones and other senior executives travelled to PNG this week to announce expansion plans and to officially launch the Puma Energy brand into the market. The refurbishment of the service station network has already begun to improve the facilities and services offered.

He said the company was committed to having its full retail network overhauled by March next year.

Jones said the new branding was the start of an extensive programme to bring better facilities and service standards to Puma’s fuel terminals, retail stations and aviation capabilities in PNG.

“Under our expansion and improvement programme, Puma will bring new services to PNG such as bitumen, bunkering and LPG.

“We will be bringing our global health, safety and environment initiatives and programmes to all our operations in PNG.