As Papua New Guinea business gets back to work, Business Advantage PNG’s Andrew Wilkins looks at some of the issues coming up in 2018. With APEC coming to Port Moresby and a second LNG project in the offing, this is a year when PNG is going to be the subject of international attention.
Frieda River partners seek arbitration to resolve dispute, Livestock Development Corporation ‘defunct’ and food labelling remains an issue. Your weekly digest of the latest business news.
Highlands Pacific is expanding its focus from large projects and exploration, to controlling interests in smaller projects offering near term returns. Highlands Pacific Managing Director, Craig Lennon, tells Business Advantage PNG it is a response to market changes.
The Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has outlined a plan of greater government involvement in Papua New Guinea’s industrial development. In a speech to the Australia Papua New Guinea Business Forum & Trade Expo in Port Moresby O’Neill described the need both to broaden the industry base and to move some industries up the value chain.
The Minister for Mining, Byron Chan, says that the amendments to Papua New Guinea’s Mining Act are ‘complete’. But he tells Business Advantage PNG that there are some contentious issues.
PanAust is keen to start development of the Frieda River copper gold project, Managing Director Fred Hess told the PNG Mining and Petroleum Investment Conference in Sydney. But he warns there are many obstacles to establishing a mine in such a remote region of Papua New Guinea and the decision has not yet been made to go ahead.
Frieda River, a wholly owned PNG subsidiary of PanAust, has lodged a Special Mining Lease application to Papua New Guinea’s Mineral Resources Authority to develop the Frieda River Copper-Gold Project. Glen Connell, PanAust’s General Manager, Government and Community Relations, tells Business Advantage PNG that developing a ‘social licence’ to operate is just as crucial to the success of the project.
PanAust has released its feasibility study into the Frieda River mine in Sandaun Province, claiming it is ‘one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits in the world’, with an initial 17-year mine life. The company’s intention is to take a staged approach to development.
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