PM MARAPE ENCOURAGE DOWNSTREAM PROCESSING

Prime Minister James Marape after seeing what transpired last Thursday where there was no fuel to power the airline companies, he strongly called for downstream processing of the country’s natural resources.

“Downstream processing of our natural resources, including oil and gas, is a major policy of this Government and our coalition partners,” PM Marape said.

“Therefore, we cannot be energy-insecure, as we are producing oil that goes to refineries in Singapore and is then sent back to us.

“We can reverse this arrangement if the cost structure is right.

“Oil from Kutubu can be sold in Kina to NapaNapa refinery, or a new refinery to be set up, and processed in the country.

“I will be having meetings with Santos, ExxonMobil, Kumul Petroleum Holdings Ltd and Mineral Resources Development Company – upon my return from Singapore – to look at producing petroleum products from our own resources instead of importing as we go into the future.

“The whole idea is to ensure that we are energy-secure, instead of being wholly-dependent on one supplier, to save the country from grinding to a halt as we’ve seen last Thursday.”

Prime Minister James Marape met with Puma Energy and Bank of PNG top executive in Singapore and discusses issues of foreign exchange that affected the supply of fuel to airline operators.

PM Marape warned the fuel supplier that this issue shouldn’t happen again in the future as they work around resolving it.

“I made it clear at the meeting that there must never again be a repeat of such a situation in Papua New Guinea, where there is no supply of fuel to planes and ships, and that Puma and BPNG must resolve all issues,” PM Marape said.

“I have asked Puma to come to a meeting with BPNG, with the State as arbitrator, for outstanding issues to be resolved.

“When we return from Singapore, we will hold a meeting with the Central Bank, to find out exactly what are the issues with Puma so there is never again a repeat of what happened last Thursday.”

“This is not just a Puma-Central Bank issue, but one of FX required by our business community, especially for the import of products into PNG.

“This issue points us to the fact that we need to relook at how Central Bank regulates and controls flow of FX to commercial banks and traders. We want ease of forex to our business community.”