Pernix Group looks to expand into Papua New Guinea, European Investment Bank invited into PNG and Finance Minister says LNG is not ‘a waterfall’ of money. Your weekly digest of the latest business news.

US-based power generation and construction company Pernix Group says it is looking to establish itself in PNG. Pernix operates and maintains two separate diesel-fired power generation plants in Fiji, and operates the power grid in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. It also recently acquired the assets of construction company DCK Guam.

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Trade Minister Richard Maru has invited the European Investment Bank to enter the PNG banking sector, saying it will increase competition. Over the next 12 months the EIB is expected to provide up to K91 million through its Pacific Microfinance Facility across the Pacific, for entrepreneurs and community projects.

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Finance Minister, James Marape

‘We are clouding our vision thinking that LNG is a waterfall of money,’ Finance Minister James Sarape has told the annual PNG Update at the University of PNG. ‘It is how we maximise use of all the resources in this country that will unlock our development potential.’

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ExxonMobil PNG has started delivery of up to 25 megawatts of electricity from the PNG LNG project, to PNG Power. ExxonMobil PNG Managing Director Andrew Barry says the company fast-tracked the project in order to deliver electricity from gas turbine generators inside the plant in time for the start of the Pacific Games.

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Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has upgraded its outlook for gold miner St Barbara to stable from negative. Analyst May Zhong said: ‘The outlook revision reflects the improvement in St Barbara’s Simberi operations in Papua New Guinea and the resolution of operational issues at its Gold Ridge mine in Solomon Islands’.

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The decision to liquidate PNG Cocoa Coconut Institute was made by the National Executive Council, says PNG CCI Ltd administrator Desmond Nambri.

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Zijin Mining’s Jianhua Wang, with Barrick Niugini’s Ila Temu

Jianhua Wang, the President of Barrick Niugini’s new 50% Chinese partner, Zijin Mining, says local employees will not lose their jobs to Chinese nationals. Barrick’s Executive Director, Ila Temu, says Zijin will help unlock the ‘full potential’ of the Porgera gold mine.

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Local opponents of the proposed Pacific Marine Industrial Zone (PMIZ) in Madang province say they are worried about repaying a US$95 million loan to China’s Exim Bank for the project, as nobody knows where the money went. They say they also fear the guarantee of 20,000 jobs to Chinese nationals. Other residents believe the PMIZ provides the biggest development opportunity for Madang since ‘the glory days’ of the coconut and cocoa plantations.

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Deloitte became the second largest professional services firm in Australia in 2014, with a growth rate of 15% compared to the previous year’s growth of 6%, according to CEO Cindy Hook.

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Researchers at the University of New England in New South Wales estimate more than A$20 billion worth of infrastructure in the South Pacific is dangerously close to the coastline and could be at risk to rising sea-levels. They say 57% of buildings in the 12 nations are within 500 metres of the coastline and almost half of these were less than 100 metres from the ocean.

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More than 700,000 visitors are expected to have visited Fiji this year in what the Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association says will be another record year for the industry.

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Heather Watson. Credit: The Guardian

And finally, far away from the South Pacific Games in Port Moresby, Britain’s rising world tennis star has her roots in Papua New Guinea. Heather Watson was born in Guernsey to her British dad, Ian, and mother Michelle from Maprik in Sepik Province. The 23-year-old lost to Serena Williams in the third-round of Wimbledon 2015.