Blue Water Shipping has established itself as a key logistics provider to Papua New Guinea’s resources sector. Its Country Manager Nick Walsh explains how.

A Blue Water Shipping chartered vessel operating at Newmont’s Lihir project in New Ireland Province, with Sanambiet and Mali islands in the background. Credit: Blue Water Shipping

The opportunities to serve Papua New Guinea’s resources sector were a key driver behind multinational Blue Water Shipping’s decision to enter the Papua New Guinean market in 2021.

“Given [PNG’s] proximity to Australia and also its propensity for project work, it was a natural choice,” Nick Walsh, Blue Water’s PNG Country Manager, tells Business Advantage PNG.

The Danish-headquartered firm’s first major contract in PNG was at Newmont’s Lihir gold mine, where Blue Water is currently moving around 15,000 twenty-foot equivalent units worth of supplies into the site each year, according to Walsh.

Outside of the resource sector, Blue Water also provides “freight of all kinds” services between Port Moresby and Lae and Brisbane and Asian ports.

Pipeline of work

Outside of Lihir, Blue Water Shipping is currently negotiating contracts to provide services to other resources projects in PNG.

Walsh says the large pipeline of projects awaiting final investment decisions, including Papua LNG, represents an “exciting” opportunity not only for Blue Water but for the entire logistics sector.

“We are [already] seeing some engagement from the EPC contractors…it’s not just Blue Water Shipping, it’s the entire logistics market that’s been contacted,” he says.

Getting settled in PNG

Walsh himself has extensive experience in PNG, having spent six years in senior logistics and procurement roles at Lihir and the Wafi-Golpu copper-gold project prior to joining Blue Water in November 2024.

He says logistics firms face a variety of challenges in PNG. The best things firms like his can do to mitigate these challenges is “picking the right people.”

“PNG has always been a place where having that local knowledge and understanding is really important. That’s our foundation, as we understand what the projects want and how they want it delivered.”

This article was first published in Mining and Energy 2025/26, released in October. Read the full edition here.