Eight-Mile Settlement sets the pace with photo exhibition and website

Emmanuel Onom Mel (centre with camera) with his friends from Eight-Mile Settlement at the opening of his exhibition ‘Life in 8 Mile is Hard’ at The University of Papua New Guinea.-Picture by SEAN DAVEY

Local youths from Eight-Mile Settlment hang photographs in preparation for the opening night of the photography exhibition ‘Life in 8 Mile is Hard’ by Emmanuel Onom Mel and Wanpis Kaupa. – Picture by SEAN DAVEY

Local youths from Eight-Mile Settlement hang photographs in preparation for the opening night of the photography exhibition ‘Life in8 Mile is Hard’ by Emmanuel Onom Mel and Wanpis Kaupa. – Picture by SEAN DAVEY

Locals from Eight-Mile pose for a group portrait at the University of PNG after hanging the photography exhibition ‘Life in 8 Mile is Hard’ by local Eight-Mile Settlement youths Emmanuel Onom Mel and Wanpis Kaupa.- Picture by SEAN DAVEY

The exhibition at the University of PNG.-Picture by SEAN DAVEY

The Eight-Mile Settlement outside Port Moresby is setting the pace for other settlements in Papua New Guinea by having its own photographic exhibition and establishing its own website which features heartwarming poems and stories written by its residents.
The exhibition with a difference, titled ‘Life in 8-Mile is Hard’ opened at the University of PNG last Saturday night (Aug 22) and will next year be featured at the Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne, Australia.
A difference in that it featured photographs by settlement youth who were taught and inspired by Australian professional photographer Sean Davey.
In what is believed to be a first for a settlement community in Papua New Guinea, Davey has also set up a website entirely devoted to the Eight-Mile Settlement, http://www.8milesettlement.com/ which showcases their photographs, writings and lifestyle.
The photography exhibition that opened at UPNG was part of a gala evening that showcased the fruits of an arts education programme that was run at Eight-Mile Settlement from June 1-7 this year.
Funded by The Law and Justice Sector through AusAID, and facilitated by UPNG, the workshop attracted over 100 local youths from Eight-Mile Settlement each day the workshop was on.
The group was headed by UPNG theatre lecturer and Eight-Mile resident David Motsy.
The workshop focused on four main activities: painting, drama, music and story telling.
“Fruits of the workshop can be viewed at http://www.8milesettlement.com/ and also I believe that this website is the first in Papua New Guinea devoted entirely to a settlement community,” Mr Davey said.
“While I was facilitating at the workshop, I was photographing in the settlement and interviewing residents.
“Local boys would accompany me and help with introductions and translation.
“I gave them a small digital camera that I had in my camera bag and asked them to start using the camera to photograph as well.
“They really liked photographing and they passed the camera amongst themselves and made plenty of pictures of the settlement, including portraits, landscapes and close-ups.
“One youth, 17-year-old Emmanuel Onom Mel, in particular liked the camera and taking pictures a lot.
“He kept the camera and would photograph everything.
“He was very enthusiastic.
“I downloaded the photographs that the youths made and I was very impressed by the intuitive style in which they were working, photographing very candidly and freely.
“They were getting ‘real’ pictures of settlement life, compared to the more formal and posed photos that I, as an outsider, was making.”
Mr Davey showed a selection of Emmanuel's work, and other youths’, to the curator at the Monash Gallery of Art in Victoria, and he was very impressed by what he saw.
“On the basis of this, he offered to have an exhibition of my work, along with work done by Emmanuel, at the Monash Gallery of Art in February and March 2010,” he said.

Kimelo Productions new blog

My old mate Simon Anakapu has set up a new blog for his business, Kimelo Productions, which specialises in media, public relations and publishing.

The address is http://kimeloproductions.blogspot.com/.

Malaysia-Papua New Guinea trade continues to grow

Trade between Malaysia and Papua New Guinea registered at K680 million last year and continues to grow, according to new Malaysian High Commissioner Datin Blanche Olbery (pictured).
Ms Olbery, who presented her credentials to Governor General Sir Paulias Matane on Aug 7, said this as Malaysia prepares to celebrate its 52nd anniversary of independence on Aug 31.
She is the first-ever Malaysian High Commissioner in PNG, her seven predecessors being male.
In terms of trade, volume of trade between the two nations registered last year stood at RM 890 million (K680m) compared in 2007, the volume of trade was RM428.5 million (K329.62 m), with a trade surplus for Malaysia.
“In term of investment, the Malaysian private sector continues to have significant presence with investments totaling K3b since 1994,” Ms Olbery, a lawyer by profession, said.
“Being the largest Asian investors, Malaysian companies become the leading citizen job providers in PNG owing to large number of jobs created per million kina invested.
“From the latest Investment Promotion Authority database source, Malaysian companies have generated 36,000 jobs since 1995.   
“Many Malaysian companies which are already well entrenched and have a strong footing in PNG find that the investment and business climate are becoming more favourable and conducive.”
The biggest Malaysian companies here are Rimbunan Hijau (RH), Carpenter Group, TST Group, Johor Corporation (shareholder of New Britain Palm Oil Ltd), and several timber companies as well as Malaysian companies that involved in constructions and retail business.
“We also have state-owned bank, Maybank, which is operated in Waigani Port Moresby and Lae,” Ms Olbery said.
“Malaysian company International Food Corporation Ltd (IFC), a subsidiary of FIMA, is also involved in mackerel canning since 1995 in Lae.
“Taking into account a potential sago harvesting plantation in PNG, Malaysia’s Sarawak state government under its agency, the land custody and development authority (LCDA) has set to invest in the commercialisation of sago industry in PNG.
“The Sarawak government and the PNG government, under its National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI), has agreed to foster a joint research and development programme in developing quality sago in PNG.”
  Kula Lumpur and Port Moresby established diplomatic ties in 1975 and Malaysia established its diplomatic mission in Port Moresby in 1982.
Ms Olbery forsees a bright future for PNG, especially with the multi-billion kina liquid natural gas (LNG) project soon to come on stream.
“With the recent discovery of world’s biggest natural gas reservoir and the LNG project will be operating soon, this will certainly change the economy of PNG dramatically,” she said.
“This positive development would attract many foreign investors to invest in PNG including Malaysia.
“Due to the positive prospect of PNG economy, I would like to promote PNG as a strategic destination for Malaysian investors.
“On top of that, in term of political engagement, I also would like to promote high level visits between the two nations during my tour of duty as a High Commissioner of Malaysia.”

Offshore discovery from Papua New Guinea

Keli Taureka was raised in PNG, but learned the ropes on in California

By Rowan Callick Article from: The Australian

A GIANT within China’s highly-competitive energy world has emerged, intriguingly, from Papua New Guinea.
Against very determined global competition, Isikeli Taureka, Chevron’s country manager for China, has won the tender to develop a 2, 000 sq km gas field in mountainous Sichuan in a multi-billion-dollar project with PetroChina.
Papua New Guineans can be found in some surprising places, such as the vice-president for flight operations at Etihad Airways, Granger Narara.
But Taureka is the first to succeed in such a high-profile way.
“This is the big league,” he says.
Isikeli– known as“Keli” – Taureka graduated in economics from the University of PNG in 1976, and worked at the Bank of South Pacific, then owned by the National Australia Bank, for12years. The job included a spell in Melbourne.
Then he decided he’d “had enough” of banking.
“The capital market wasn’t very complex, and it wasn’t exciting any more,” he says.
His next challenge was heading the imploding state-owned monopoly telco, Post and Telecommunication Corp. He separated the two functions and then established PNG’s first mobile phone company as a subsidiary of Telikom.
“As ever in PNG, politics interfered in what should have been a smooth transition to corporatisation,” he says.
“Telecommunications were among the country’s crown jewels.
“I tried to slash costs and introduce greater accountability, but the unions objected.
“The vision of enabling grassroots people was lost.
“The country couldn’t progress while calls were costing more than one kina a minute.”
Taureka is delighted that private competition has recently, finally, arrived, increasing access and choice.
Then in 1995 his life as a global executive began– though he didn’t know it at the time.
Chevron, which owned large oil fields and prospects in PNG’s Highlands, headhunted him.
“That was one of the luckiest breaks in my life, to be employed by a great company.”
In fact, the world’s sixth-biggest Chevron liked what it saw of his work in PNG, and shifted him to San Ramon in northern California, its global HQ.
There, he became the planning manager for international exploration and production, and facilitated top management meetings.
“It was a plunge into the real world of big business,” he says.
“I saw how companies were run, the processes and people and behaviour required to achieve outstanding results– things you don’t get to see in PNG.”
After two years he thought he would be assigned back to PNG for good. ” It didn’t dawn on me that this would trigger an international career.”
Taureka did return briefly to PNG, but also looked after Chevron’s West Australian operations on Barrow Island. In 2002 he became a Bangkok-based managing director, looking after operations in Thailand, Cambodia and Bangladesh– reorganising things to confront steep production declines.
In 2005 Chevron acquired fellow California-based Unocal, whose Thai assets were its most important–and Taureka smoothed their transition into the Chevron fold.
When Chevron’s chief in China retired in mid-2006, Taureka replaced him and was able to hit the ground running, as he’d been working for sometime on regional strategy.
“We were in a head-to-head bid for the acquisition of Unocal with China National Offshore Oil Corporation, with which we had two joint venture offshore operations, so I went to China with some trepidation. But I now enjoy close relations with my CNOOC counterparts.”
Shortly after Taureka’s arrival in China, he led the team that won the tender to develop, with PetroChina, the Chuandongbei “sour gas” fields in Sichuan–the largest foreign involvement in the Chinese oil and gas industry. The government had insisted on the introduction of a foreign operator after an uncontrolled release of sour gas resulted in 200 deaths and forced 5,000people from their homes.
“It’s an amazing project for us.
“We developed a plan and won the tender in less than six months.
“That’s almost the speed of light.
“PetroChina wanted to expedite it too, because of the strong pressure for increased energy supply in China.”
Taureka was able to call on Chevron’s best resources and the company won the contract, for 49% of the project, which involves 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Wells have been drilled, reserves proved, funding arranged and the project is moving into full construction mode.
“We did not think we could do anything in China,” he says, because of potential resentment over the withdrawal of CNOOC’s bid for Unocal in the face of political opposition in the US.
“But the Chinese are pretty practical people, and they appreciated our experience in handling sour gas.
“We have had to prove ourselves, though.
“It’s not just ganbei (the Chinese toast at banquets).
“We’ve taken a very consultative approach.
“We hope to grow in China through o opportunities where we can offer technical advantages and also seek to work with our Chinese partners in the international arena.”
Today, based in a massive office tower in the heart of Beijing, he heads a fast-growing operational business with about 200 staff there and in Tanggu, Shekou and Sichuan.
Taureka says that being Papua New Guinean “provides counterparts, coming from this Asia-Pacific region”.
“When I walk in the door, they tend to think I’m South African or American.
“When I say I’m Papua New Guinean, things loosen up quickly.
“Chevron helped PetroChina drill its first well overseas, in PNG, and such links go a long way.
“PetroChina’s PNG manager then is now vice-president of CNPC, PetroChina’s parent company, and I recently took him to see our deep-water operations in the Gulf of Mexico.”
“It’s been quite an exciting ride,” Taureka says.
He remains a PNG citizen.
But he has become very interested in China and is building an awareness within Chevron of the possibilities of doing business there “across the value chain”.
The company already supplies liquefied natural gas to China out of Australia’s NorthWest Shelf field.
Taureka loves the energy business.
“The numbers are much bigger than most other industries.
“It’s strategic, it’s political.”
He has now recruited six top Chinese graduates– “building homegrown talent” – as he was once groomed in PNG.

Sukundimi, the great river god of Papua New Guinea (please click to enlarge)

Ownership of mineral and petroleum resources

By GREG ANDERSON                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 Executive Director

Papua New Guinea Chamber of Mines and Petroleum

 

In recent weeks there has been a great deal of publicity and media hype promoting private ownership of mineral, petroleum and even water resources as a simple recipe that will solve all the issues of resource development and benefit distribution.  The Chamber strongly believes that the arguments presented for private ownership of resources are grossly misleading and simplistic and will stop any future resource development in PNG.

Ownership of minerals and oil and gas resources is currently vested in the State.  Despite the frequent use of the words “resource owners” in the media to describe landowners from mining and petroleum areas, the only resource owner in PNG is the State.

State ownership of minerals is vital to the development of PNG as a Nation.  State control of resources allows them to be developed for the benefit of all citizens as required by the Constitution.  The resources are managed in an effective and orderly manner that is recognised internationally and accepted by the investor.  Private ownership of minerals means that a few lucky individuals could expect to become rich at the expense of the rest.  Papua New Guinea cannot develop as a Nation under these conditions; it would splinter into groups driven by self interest.  

An exploration tenement gives the holder the right to explore for minerals or oil and gas which is an expensive and high risk activity.  The explorer’s only security is the tenement and the guarantee provided by the State that the explorer will have the right to develop any discoveries made on the tenement in accordance with requirements and obligations set by the State.  If any potential explorer believes that the State will not, or cannot, provide this guarantee with an acceptable risk profile then the explorer will not invest exploration dollars.

The simple fact is that if a change is made to mineral ownership, exploration will die and there will be no new resource developments as the risk profile will be unacceptable to any potential developer. There will be a complete breakdown in the well established, internationally recognised system that underpins resource development in PNG.  There will be no benefits for anyone.

Whilst landowner support and agreement is integral to all current projects the State owns the resource and it issues a production licence over those resources for the benefit of all citizens. This situation provides the ultimate safeguard and provides a level of surety and confidence to the investor.  PNG’s success in resource development speaks for itself.

Papua New Guinea has one of the most equitable benefit sharing systems in the world for mining and petroleum developments.  The country has developed a formula for benefit sharing which is unique on a worldwide basis.  It includes the National Government, affected Provincial Governments and Local Level Governments, and the impacted communities.  Whilst the law states that the minerals belong to the State the benefit distribution clearly recognises the unique Melanesian cultural and traditional affinity to the land by prescribing a suite of benefits to the affected landowners.

The real issue with resource development in PNG is the lack of governance and transparency associated with the use of the benefits generated from resource development.  Change in ownership will not address this problem, it requires a fundamental shift in the way that governments and landowner leaders manage, utilise and distribute resource benefits and the way they report on this to their respective constituents.  It requires a major shift towards transparency, integrity and openness.

The National Government, Provincial Governments, and leaders of landowner companies and organisations need to regularly and comprehensively explain to their constituents the value of the benefits they receive and how they have been utilised.  For example, why is it that Provincial Governments that have received hundreds of millions of Kina rarely explain to the people the existence of these funds, let alone what has been achieved with them, or what are the plans for future expenditure and investment.  Where are the audited reports for the public to view? Similarly, many landowner companies have not produced annual reports, held regular meetings or conducted election of office bearers.

The Chamber firmly believes that private ownership of minerals is not a way forward for PNG. PNG equity in the country’s resource sector is growing year by year through investment by the Government, landowners, superannuation funds and individuals buying shares through the Port Moresby Stock Exchange.  If mineral ownership was privatised the fundamental question that investors would ask themselves is am I prepared to risk my money in a company operating in PNG. The answer that all investors will come up with is no, the risk is totally unacceptable. All Papua New Guineans know the greed and conflict that would arise.

The Chamber is opposed to any move to change State ownership of mineral and oil and gas resources to enrich a handful of fortunate landowners at the cost of all Papua New Guineans

Thought for today

From PAUL OATES in Queensland, Australia 

 THE KITCHEN TABLE

There are lots of things wrong with Australia today,
And I'd like to have something to say if I may.
You know that, forsooth, our problem with youth, Untidy, ill-mannered,
untamed and uncouth,
Is the fact that their home life.
is so often unstable,
And it's all for the lack of a kitchen table.

Remember,
How once we would sit down as one,
Dad would say grace,
when the carving was done.
With our own serviettes from our own special rings,
And we all knew our manners and etiquette things.
Then our elders would tell us of custom and fable,
When we all sat about at our kitchen table.

Now, they're building new mansions,
with 4-car garages.
Our working lives,
mortgaged to interest and charges.
There's less time at home,
for the tea to be made,
And it's seldom today, that a table is laid.
There's room after room under gable and gable,
But there's not enough room for a kitchen table.

At weekends, the parents are chauffeurs unpaid,
No wonder they're tired and their tempers are frayed,
As they ferry their broods to arenas of sport,
Where the culture of winnings intensively taught,
And there's more on the tele,
both free and by cable,
So, there's no room for talk,
around the kitchen table.

Karl Marx called religion,
the drug of the people,
But there's scant regard now for the church or the steeple,
Just give 'em more sport and don't let 'em think,
And keep 'em away from the kitchen sink.
We'll give 'em more sport and the culture of Babel,
The throwaway culture that threw out the table.

With the culture of rap and their baseball caps,
There'll soon be no fellers, no chaps and no guys.
When they all dress the same,
then it's little surprise,
that the girls swear as much,
and as foul as the blokes.
So we grandparents must,
just as long as we're able,
Keep our culture alive,
around the kitchen table.