The managing director of Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited, Mr Wapu Sonk, has reacted to the allegations made recently by the director general of National Institute of Standards and Industrial Technology (NISIT).
Mr Sonk noted, “I find it difficult to understand how an allegation of lost billions of kina can be made. There appears to be no technical basis for this wild estimate.”
“There are many checks and balances in the operations of the petroleum industry in this country. In both the current oil and LNG projects the production and export of hydrocarbons is metered at a number of different stages during product processing and export.”
“These checks are necessary in our petroleum export operations since the projects are owned by a number of joint venture partners who the Operator has a responsibility to make regular technical reports to. In the case of the PNG LNG Project this involves ExxoMobil providing detailed information on volumes of gas being processed and LNG being exported.”
Mr Sonk outlined that checks of the gas metering systems were regularly carried out by the internationally recognised SGS, whose reports were audited also by the Department of Petroleum & Energy.
“International petroleum companies exercise of good practice includes regular maintenance and checks of the metering devices in their processing plants and export facilities. Metering specifications are tightly controlled by both buyers and sellers of world commodities such as LNG. It is bizarre that a standards agency is effectively accusing major investors in PNG in this way. ”
Mr Sonk suggested that NISIT liaise with operators in the PNG petroleum industry before making unsubstantiated comments.
