Author: OBG Admin

NGIP Agmark: Agro-industry

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

The Company New Guinea Islands Produce Agmark (NGIP Agmark) is a diversified agri-business based in Papua New Guinea and operating plantations, coastal shipping, hardware, machinery, trucking and agricultural supply businesses. NGIP Agmark is PNG’s leading cocoa company, as the country’s largest cocoa grower, trader and exporter. It is headquartered in Kokopo, East New Britain Province. From this base the company trades more than 60% of PNG’s cocoa into Asia, China, the US and Europe, shipping directly to the world’s largest chocolate manufacturers. The company is also involved in the marketing and trading of a range of other agricultural commodities including vanilla, copra, essential oils, chillies,

Oil Search: Oil and gas

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

The Company Oil Search (OSH) is engaged in oil and gas exploration in Papua New Guinea, as well as in Yemen, Iraq and Tunisia. OSH’s key projects in PNG include the PNG liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, three oil projects (Greater Moran, Gobe and SE Menanda), and the Hides gas-to-electricity (GTE) development. OSH was incorporated in 1929 and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. OSH’s profit was up 72% in 2014 to $353.2m, representing the highest profit in the company’s 86-year history. This was attributed to the first contribution from the PNG LNG project. Net profit after tax included a $129.6m after-tax impairment charge, largely related

Nhon Luc Ly-CEO-AIA Myanmar; Son Nguyen-Country President-Chubb Life Insurance Myanmar; Daw Zarchi Tin-CEO

PNG’s niche markets require cultural insight to insure

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

A projected rise in home ownership and increasing demand for private health coverage are among the forces expected to drive growth in Papua New Guinea’s insurance sector. However, competitive pressures and global risks may also hamper the industry throughout 2015-16. Though the number of registered insurers is small, the market relatively limited and take-up rates for most forms of non-compulsory insurance low, competition is thriving and the sector is profitable, with low loss ratios despite a recent uptick in fire claims. As of 2014, there were 14 licensed underwriters in the PNG insurance market, many with links to overseas companies. Underwriters anticipate expansion in key

Stuart Tait-Regional Head of Commercial Banking-Asia Pacific

Search for LNG in PNG continues

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

A common thread to Papua New Guinea’s two largest energy projects to date – the PNG liquified natural gas (LNG) mega-project and the upcoming Elk-Antelope play – is that while both are now controlled by energy supermajors Exxon and Total, neither was originally discovered by their current operators. Like the development of new “elephant” projects across the globe, exploration for new major oil and gas plays is often left to smaller oil and gas firms, which operate on much smaller capital resources than their larger brethren. These “wildcat” outfits, as they are often called, serve as the lifeblood of the energy sector, often risking their

Éric N’guessan-Managing Partner-EY Côte d’Ivoire

International insurance firms face challenges covering PNG

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

Facing extreme risks from natural disasters, as a result of the country’s location on the geological “Ring of Fire”, insurance is a much-needed service in Papua New Guinea. PNG has frequent earthquakes and is home to a number of active volcanoes. The city of Rabaul was destroyed by volcanic eruptions in 1934 and again in 1994. In 2014, one of the volcanoes in the area (Tavurvur) erupted again. The 1998 earthquake and subsequent tsunami near Aitape killed more than 2000 people, and a swarm of earthquakes was experienced in and around the country in early 2015. According to the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and

Mohammed El Etreby-Chairman-Banque Misr

PNG expands electricity coverage with new investment

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

Continued economic growth in recent years is driving demand for electricity across PNG, straining the capability of the country’s primary grid networks. The widely dispersed population and geographic challenges continue to pose formidable barriers to increasing electrification, while the small but growing capacity serving the main urban areas is in need of expansion to meet growing power needs. Total national power generation capacity currently sits at around 582 MW, according to Asian Development Bank (ADB) figures, less than the output of a single large power plant in many countries. Lacking a coal mining industry that can supply cheap fuel for its power plants like many

Daniel Asare-Kyei-CEO-Esoko; Curtis Vanderpuije-CEO-ExpressPay; and Daniel Marfo-General Manager-Zipline Ghana

PNG hosts development of underwater mine technology

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

The most unique and potentially profitable mining operation in Papua New Guinea is moving forward again after a funding dispute between Toronto-listed Nautilus Minerals and the PNG government initially slowed development of the underwater mining project following lease approval in 2011. The technically challenging venture, dubbed Solwara 1, employs a range of new proprietary techniques and purpose-built hardware to carry out deep seabed mining in the Bismarck Sea west of central New Ireland, slated to begin as early as 2018. Solwara 1 Pushing the limits of current mining technology, the Solwara 1 project targets mineral-rich seafloor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits in an area about 1.3

Nhon Luc Ly-CEO-AIA Myanmar; Son Nguyen-Country President-Chubb Life Insurance Myanmar; Daw Zarchi Tin-CEO

PNG’s vast untapped mineral deposits continue to draw investors

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

When the global economic downturn lowered demand for raw materials and depressed commodity prices, the mining sector as a whole was forced to reckon with a rapidly changing paradigm wreaking havoc on its collective balance sheets. Ripples from this slowdown continue to buffet the industry today, including in Papua New Guinea, as softer commodity price declines, exacerbated by the strength of the US dollar, left the Bloomberg Commodity Index in 2014 at its lowest level in nearly six years. Taking a Knock The index, which tracks 22 products, fell 17% in 2014 and kept below 100 as of June 2015 compared to 175 in April

Nhon Luc Ly-CEO-AIA Myanmar; Son Nguyen-Country President-Chubb Life Insurance Myanmar; Daw Zarchi Tin-CEO

The new LNG project kicks off greater interest in PNG

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

The country’s limited energy needs and its rapidly expanding supply of gas have led policymakers to pursue the somewhat obvious path of focusing on the export market via shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Although the price of energy has declined considerably since the initial plans for the Papua New Guinea LNG project were first drawn up, gas remains the country’s top foreign currency earner, with future potential earnings having the power to transform the economy. With one major LNG project now up and running, a host of energy firms both large and small are looking to develop the next big play in the country.

Nhon Luc Ly-CEO-AIA Myanmar; Son Nguyen-Country President-Chubb Life Insurance Myanmar; Daw Zarchi Tin-CEO

PNG’s telecoms firms compete to deliver television content

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

The battle for dominance over the telecommunications sector between state-owned Telikom Papua New Guinea and private operator Digicel is extending into the media space, with the two operators expanding their offering into the free-to-air television market. While Telikom’s recent acquisition of commercial television station EMTV and Digicel’s launch of TVWAN appear to be tangential moves, the strategic motivations are mainly convergence driven. Each player appears set on winning the race to have PNG consumers access all their content across multiple devices via a single subscription with a single provider. Consumer Choice “The objective is to have a multi-platform presence, and offer apps and free-to-air services